A Threefold Cord
by Carole C
Summary: In the struggle to prevent the Apocalypse, Sam and Dean gain a long-forgotten weapon. Gen AU branching off from the final scene of S4's "On the Head of a Pin." Spoilers through end of S4.
1. Chapter 1

_**THEN: **_

"Are you all right?"

Dean rolled his throbbing head enough to see Cas sitting in the bedside chair, the angel's gaze fixed more on the ceiling than on him. Dean turned his face away, swallowed against the burning rawness in his throat. "No thanks to you."

Cas shifted in the chair. "You need to be more careful."

Dean cut his eyes towards the angel. "You need to learn how to manage a damn devil's trap."

Cas still did not quite meet his eyes. "That's not what I mean. Uriel is dead."

"Was it the demons?"

"It was disobedience," Cas answered, almost on the heels of his question. The angel's neutral expression altered subtly. He licked his lips and for the first time, turned to look fully into Dean's face. "He was working against us."

Cas's gaze drifted away once more, as if he were watching or listening to something far beyond this hospital room.

Dean swallowed again, this time trying to ease a pain worse than the irritation in his throat. He drew a deep breath, and another one, to force the question out. "Is it true?"

Cas turned to look at him again, his placid expression altered by lines of tension between his brows.

"Did I break the first seal? Did I start all this?"

The lines between Cas's brows deepened, and he gave the slightest of nods. "Yes."

The last shred of hope he had crumbled to dust and Dean looked away, almost unable to breathe through the pain.

"When we discovered Lilith's plan for you," Cas's deep voice coarsened with a savage edge. "We laid siege to Hell and we fought our way to get to you before you—"

"Jump-started the Apocalypse," Dean choked out.

Cas glanced at him then, not with blame, but a deep resigned sadness. He turned his gaze up towards the ceiling. "But we were too late."

"Why didn't you just leave me there, then?" The words came out rushed, forced past nausea and loathing.

"It's not blame that falls on you, Dean," Cas's voice was gentle, and slow, as if he were choosing his words with great care.

Dean felt his lip begin to tremble, and he couldn't stop it. He didn't have the strength to resist the sting of kindness, the blow of empathy.

"It's fate." Cas looked down at his hands, loosely clasped in his lap. "The righteous man who begins it is the only one who can finish it."

He turned his gaze to Dean, and he felt the crushing weight of Cas's urgency. "_You_ have to stop it."

"Lucifer?" Dean whispered, helpless to hold back the tear that rolled down his cheek. "The Apocalypse? What does that mean?" he pleaded.

Cas's gaze turned almost fearful, and he looked away again. His shoulders rounded.

"Hey! Don't you go disappearing on me, you son of a bitch." Anger almost pushed out despair. "What does that mean!"

"I don't know." Cas's answer was soft, quick.

"BULL!"

"I don't," Cas stated, his voice firm and flat. He looked at him again, the muted light picking out the eerie blue of his eyes.

"Dean, they don't tell me much." Cas's expression and his voice took on urgency again, and import, as if he were trying to load his words with more meaning than they could carry. "I _know_ our fate rests with you."

"Well, then you guys are screwed," Dean choked out in a whisper. "I can't do it, Cas. It's too big."

Cas looked away again, a flicker of grief crossing his face before it settled back into its normal somber lines.

"Alastair was right. I'm not all here." Dean's voice broke on a little gasp for breath against a rising sob. "I'm not str-strong enough."

Cas turned to look at him again, and for the first time, Dean saw accusation in those glowing eyes. He couldn't bear it.

"Well, I guess I'm not the man either of our dads wanted me to be," he confessed, forcing the words out.

Cas looked away.

"Find someone else." He was so tired. So damned tired and soul-deep sick of all of it. "It's not me."

There was no way to stop the tears. He didn't have enough strength left for that, either. Dean closed his eyes and didn't open them until the rustling of massive wings had long faded away.

_**NOW:**_

"Man, I'll be glad to get out of here," Dean said. "This place gives me the creeps."

Sam peered out at the slice of isolated Louisiana countryside revealed by the headlights. "It's not so bad. Lots of trees and water. It's warm. Spanish moss. Wildlife."

"Spanish moss is spooky. They use that stuff in horror movies for a reason, dude. And the water stinks and it's full of snakes and alligators and mosquitoes the size of Huey choppers. And my eyes are still watering from the wildlife that we ran ov-"

"STOP!"

"SHIT!" Dean slammed the brakes the same instant Sam shouted, a white flash of something human shaped darting out in front of them.

Tires squalled. THUMP.

The sickening sound of a body landing on sheet metal.

But this body impacted on the hood on all fours and stared in at them through tangled hair and beat a frantic pattern on the windshield. "Drive! DRIVE! _HE'LL EAT YOU!_"

She looked back over her shoulder, back the way she came, and sprang off with a wild wordless screech. Back towards whatever terrified her.

No time to ask questions. No need to. They knew what was chasing her as soon as it burst through the tangled brush of the roadside, fangs bared, claws wide. It was too damn close to miss.

"DOWN!" Sam bellowed and the girl flung herself onto the dirt. She clapped her hands over her ears as they fired, but she didn't hide her face.

Silver rounds from a .45 will change most anything's mind. The werewolf's body jerked and twisted from the impacts and its own momentum. It fell, and neither Dean nor Sam had a doubt it was dead.

The girl needed more convincing, apparently. She rose and eased closer to the twitching corpse, her body tense.

"Don't touch it," Dean warned her. "It's a werewolf—it could still be contagious."

"Maybe," she murmured, and sank into a fetal crouch. She raked her hair away from her face and jerked all over. It was only then that Dean realized she bore four long, shallow, bleeding lacerations across her back, and that she was naked.

"I'll take care of her," Sam murmured.

Dean nodded with an expression of relieved gratitude. Sam was better with hysterical females. He'd much rather salt and burn than wipe snot and pat and try to think of something reasonably sympathetic to say.

Sam took the first-aid kit out of the trunk, along with a blanket and bottle of water. Bottled spring water replaced with the sanctified variety. Dean paused, hand on pistol grip, as Sam went back to the girl and opened the bottle.

Nothing happened when Sam poured it over her bleeding back, except that she looked back at Sam over her shoulder with a shaky smile and a soft "Thank you."

Crap. She looked about seventeen. Their night was shot. The girl bowed her head again as Sam wiped away the blood from her wounds. She didn't flinch even when Sam pulled his silver knife and used it to flick a couple of pieces of debris from her raw flesh.

Satisfied now that his brother could handle anything she could dish out, Dean hefted the rock salt and gas can.

The girl's head snapped up and she sprang to her feet. "Wait!"

She put herself between him and the dead werewolf. "There's something I need to do first!"

"What?"

Sam mouthed _~What the?~_ behind her back, his pistol aimed between her shoulder blades.

"It won't take long—it's for his soul." She moved over to the corpse with her back straight and no more sign of fear. She knelt and laid her hands over the blood-spattered face, closing the corpse's eyes and smoothing away its grotesque snarl.

"Sad, you look human again now, you poor bastard," she told it, her voice low and kind. "You were probably a really nice guy before this. I hope for your sake you didn't eat your family or something."

She dipped a finger into a bullet hole and drew a cross on his forehead. "Réquiem æternam dona ei, Dómine. Et lux perpétua lúceat ei. Requiéscat in pace. Amen."

A touch of her bloodied fingertip to her lips and then she rose and nodded. "Now you can immolate him."

Dean shuddered. He could see Sam out of the side of his vision, with an equally revolted expression, keeping the girl covered.

"Are you sure you're done?" Dean asked, as he began to pour the salt over the corpse.

"I certainly can't help you out with a light." She stepped back and put her hand over her nose when he opened the gas can and began to pour. She moved to put the slight breeze at her back.

Dean glanced at Sam again.

Sam nodded. He'd noticed too, and holstered his pistol. "Come here," he called to her.

Dean drew his, but kept it at his side as she turned. Sam wrapped the blanket around the girl's shoulders. Dean lit the gas. Through the roar, he heard the girl speak.

"Do you two always go around prepared for convenient corpse disposal?" she asked Sam.

"Yes, actually." Sam gave her that charming smile that made women want to pat him on the head. Right before they tied him to a bed and fed him chocolates.

"Hmm..." She mused, her attention on the fire, gazing past Sam. She looked up at Sam then. The flare of illumination revealed that she smiled back at him, which was unnerving, considering. "That begs all kinds of questions. Most of which I probably shouldn't be asking two big burly guys equipped for convenient corpse disposal by the side of a deserted road in the middle of the night."

"Fair enough. I'll ask one. Do you often wander naked in the woods at night?" Sam said.

"Well, I wasn't naked when I started," she sighed. "Tall, blond and ablaze over there tried to use my dress as a handle."

"How did you keep him from getting his claws into more than your dress?" Sam's tone was still bantering. The tension in his back said otherwise.

"How do mothers lift mini-vans off their babies? When something like that is chasing you, you find your inner Olympian."

"You're taking this awfully calmly now." Sam tilted his head. Dean couldn't agree more. Too damn calmly, in his estimation.

"I could say the same about you," she answered, and wrapped her hands into the edges of the blanket. "Look, I'm not really a cold-hearted bitch. I've had a lot of crisis training. True, I forgot most of it when something with big teeth and really bad breath wanted to do the nasty, which I'll be hazed for from now till amen… but still…"

"Training kicks in." Sam had a resigned tone to his voice and his broad shoulders seemed to curve just a fraction of a degree.

"Sure does." She seemed to get even smaller, huddling into that blanket.

"Ok, before Dean starts in on you—what's your name?" Sam's voice oozed sympathy and camaraderie.

So, here goes another round of Good cop/Bad cop. Juvenile Edition. Cool. He wouldn't have to make nice with this bizarre kid.

"June Reed. What do I call you?"

"Sam." His brows pulled together and he reached out to turn her chin towards the corpse-glow. "You're not really sixteen or so, I hope?"

"Ay no! Add ten years to that, honey."

A grown woman, running naked through the woods on a cloud-obscured full moon night, chased by a werewolf. Mark another one up on the WTF scoreboard. Dean reluctantly holstered and picked up the gas can.

"That's one break this evening," he commented. They wouldn't have to deal with frantic parents. He tossed the empty can back into the trunk and walked up to them, wiping his hands on a mechanic's rag. "I don't suppose I have to tell you that you're going to need a cover story?"

"Why? A sex-crazed maniac chased me through the woods. I got away by the skin of my teeth thanks to a couple of passing good Samaritans. Sadly, no, I didn't catch their names. I was too shaken and it was too dark to get a good look at them, or at the perv. He ran off when they stopped."

"That story's not going to hold water long when they start grilling you about him," Sam chided, with a jerk of his chin towards the burning corpse. "How good are you at lying?"

"Lousy. Like, world-class terrible, at least to my family. To everyone else? I could convince the cops I'm Anastasia Romanov. Unfortunately, it's my family I'll need to lie to tonight."

Shit. Maybe they would have to deal with frantic parents. Senior edition.

She glanced up at the clouded black sky. Her nostrils flared for a breath. "Guys?" she said, looking between them both with an expression that made her seem like the poster child for pitiful lost waifs. "It's going to start pouring any second. If y'all could give me a lift to somewhere I could crash for the night? I'd be grateful all over again. I'm tired and my back hurts. I really do not want to go home and have to get into all that b.s. tonight."

Her lower lip trembled and tears welled up in her eyes and wobbled on the edges of her lower lashes. Dean stuck his hands into his pockets to keep from applauding her performance.

"You can crash for the night with us," Sam said.

Dean gave him a 'what the _hell?_' scowl when June focused her attention up on Sam with an expression of soft adoration.

When she turned that limpid gaze around onto him, Sam tried to signal something behind her back, but the message was too complex for eyebrow charades.

"Thank you," she breathed, with what looked like genuine deep relief. "Really, guys, you have no idea what you're getting me out of here. Stars above, I owe you both huge for this."

Crap. He couldn't leave the woman standing barefoot and wrapped in a blanket by the side of a deserted road in the middle of the night. On a full moon. Where the last cremains of a werewolf still blazed.

Then again, he'd done worse. But he kept walking towards the car anyway, and opened the rear passenger door for her. His stomach growled.

"If you want, I can pay you back by fixing something to eat tonight and make breakfast for y'all in the morning," June offered.

"We'll settle for breakfast tonight," Sam grinned. "It'll be morning by the time we get back. Technically, anyway."

"Sure, as long as you don't expect anything too fancy. Or your gravy to be any color but white," she said as she slid into the back seat.

"White gravy?" Sam grinned, a wide flash of teeth in the dome light. "No red-eye?"

"Ugh, no. Not by my hand, anyway. Whoever thought coffee belongs in gravy should be taken out and flogged." She pulled a disgusted face.

"Told you," Sam said.

"Shut it." Dean turned the car around. "It's food. White gravy on the other hand, is a disgusting slurry. You know how they used to make wallpaper paste, June?" He grinned into the rearview.

She was curled up in the corner of the seat, only a spill of long red tangles visible from under the blanket.

"Huh. Guess she was tired." Or faking it. He looked at Sam and jerked his head back towards their passenger with a questioning look.

Sam shrugged, circled his finger by his temple, cocked an eyebrow then shook his head. _~Nothing yet~_ he mouthed.

Great, just great. An 'I don't know' and a 'probably not crazy' and an enigma. Just what everyone wants in a houseguest. She could, however, if not faking, sleep through the Black Album at high volume. That was a point in her credit.

Dean focused past the slap of the windshield wipers. Sam watched the rain sluicing down with that glazed, distracted expression that meant he was culling through the encyclopedia of weirdness he carried around between his ears. Nothing was said until they pulled up in front of the cabin.

Sam reached back and tapped a random lump in the blanket. "June? We're here."

Her head emerged from under the blanket and she blinked in the glow from the dome light. Then she opened the door and stepped out into the driving rain, leaving the blanket behind on the seat. She tipped her face up, eyes closed like someone in a shower, for just a heartbeat.

It was all within a few scant seconds' time, but Dean would swear he could tell the instant the penny dropped for her. She twitched like she'd been pinched and dove for the blanket, swaddling herself head to foot in it again and ran with them for the shelter of the sagging porch.

Another round of eyebrow charades. The question of identity on this woman had definitely moved from the 'who' to the 'what' side of the ledger.

Sam unlocked the door and swung it open. "Go on in," he offered.

She smiled thanks and stepped over the threshold, through the thick band of rock salt. Her only reaction was a slight frown as she picked up her feet to brush the clinging chunks off her soles. As Sam moved past to turn on the lights, Dean caught her giving his brother much the same sort of "what _are_ you?" look they had been giving her.

Dean poured a couple of glasses from the carafe near the door. "Have some water," he offered her one.

"Thanks," she murmured as she took it without hesitation.

"Laudetur Christos," he said, lifting his own as if in a toast.

"In aeternum!" No wince, no hiss. She even sounded sincere. Holy water taken internally had no more effect than it had poured across open wounds. Whatever she was, she wasn't a demoniac. She looked around the room as she sipped, openly curious but with an odd affect, as if focused intently on some input other than sight.

Her eyes slid over the chalked wards without hesitation, which bothered Dean far more than 'Yikes! I'm amongst Satanists!' hysteria would have.

"Guys, forgive me for being forward," she smiled, sharing it between him and Sam. "But would it be ok if I take a shower? I feel like I've got half the woods and two-thirds of a roasted were-wolf on me."

She needed one, Dean had to admit. From what he'd seen she had leaves and twigs in her hair and blood, mud and scratches from one end to the other.

"Bathroom's this way," Sam said and led her across the room and down the short, narrow hall that separated the bedroom and bathroom from the rest of the little cabin.

He picked up their duffels from the floor as she stepped inside. "I'll hang a shirt on the doorknob for you."

"Thanks, Sam. I promise I won't hog the hot water."

Sam smiled and stepped out, but paused outside the bathroom door, listening. He didn't hear anything but the normal noises of a female preparing to get into a shower. The toilet flushed and shortly thereafter the shower curtain rings rattled and the water ran.

Sam tossed their duffels onto the beds, hung a shirt on the bathroom door and rejoined Dean in the sparse living room. His brother already had the laptop fired up, studying it as he clicked through screens.

"My weirdometer's pegged out. How 'bout yours?" Dean asked.

Sam sprawled into a chair. "Yellow zone. I don't get any of the usual signals, but she's definitely giving off some sort of static. Nothing about her adds up to anything I've heard of."

Dean frowned. "Why'd you offer to bring her back here?"

"I dunno, honestly," Sam spread his hands. "I'm drawn to her. I feel responsible for her, and that we can trust her, somehow."

"Which means she's screwing with your head," Dean snapped.

"I don't think so. It feels more like a strong hunch. She doesn't seem like she's against us, but she is sizing us up just as carefully as we are her." Sam said.

Dean nodded. "I noticed that. What the heck was that little ritual with the werewolf? She prayed that benediction on his soul right before she licked his blood off her lips. I think you missed that last little detail."

Sam's nose wrinkled. "She's not a vampire, or her teeth would have dropped for that. And why did she think that thing would rape her but eat us?"

"Who knows? I don't have a clue. She's..." Dean shook his head. "She's too aware. She watches us both, and not just our faces. She's a predator, but I don't know what type."

"She said she'd had a lot of 'crisis training,' and that she'd get hazed for what happened," Sam said, with a lift of one shoulder. "So she's not a loner, whatever she is. And they're organized."

"That'd be a heck of a paramilitary group to see, wouldn't it?" Dean's slight grin faded into a scowl. "Still, I almost wonder who was chasing who out there."

"As scared as she was at first? He was chasing her."

"Hello officer, my name is Anastasia Romanov." Dean's voice slid out of a breathy falsetto. "We're being played."

"Yeah, so June Reed's probably not her real name. I can't blame her for not being totally upfront with two guys she met on the side of the road. We didn't break out our ID either. Look, whatever she is, she's not shown a single sign of being anything dangerous."

Dean's eyebrows rose. "Why are you brushing this off? How many times have we got to have it drummed into our heads that little, pretty and harmless is usually any friggin' thing _but_?"

"I'm not brush—"

"Ok, next- and I tried to be stingy with the hot water," June announced from the doorway. Both men jerked and turned.

She looked about as hazardous as somebody's kid sister, short and candle-pale and freckle-spangled. Her unruly mess of red, waist-length hair was turned to sleek mahogany ringlets from water and a comb and Sam's shirt swallowed her almost to the knees.

She padded into the living room and settled in near Sam as if she had been in this room a hundred times before. "Mmm... love the water heater here, almost scalds your skin off." She smiled at Dean then. "If you're hungry, I don't have to wait till morning to start paying my debt in hot food."

"Help yourself. Not sure how much is in the kitchen," Dean answered, watching Sam almost as closely as her. Something was off… with both of them.

June turned and made her way unerringly towards the kitchen door. That seemed weird, until he considered that given the size of the cabin, it wouldn't take occult powers to figure out which way the kitchen had to be. "I say we load up her perky little ass and drop her off in town with enough cash for a cab, which is what we should have done an hour ago, and didn't which means she's probably messing with my head too."

Sam's face flashed with familiar, stubborn reluctance, but whatever he was going to say was interrupted by a meaty thud from the kitchen.

"Behold thy handmaiden, Messenger of the Father!" they heard her gasp.

They skidded through the doorway almost shoulder to shoulder, to see June lying prostrate on the kitchen floor, face against the worn linoleum, at Cas's feet.

"Fear not, little one," he pronounced and crouched to touch her head. "Rise up. I bring glad tidings."

"Glad tidings, huh? Then I'm really in trouble," she groaned as she rose to her knees and looked up into his face. Her expression was an uneasy mingling of awe, dread and adoration.

"Don't worry," Cas said. "Immaculate conceptions aren't my department."

"What about the other kind?" June's voice was wary but her expression was still edging towards beatific.

"Perhaps after we've been properly introduced," he said, his voice deadpan. He straightened and looked over her head at Sam and Dean. "Were you aware there is a Canis in your kitchen?"

As he spoke, his fingers carded through June's hair. Not as a man caresses a woman, but as distracted owner will idly fondle a pet.

For her part, June knelt at his feet, her cheek against Cas's thigh, eyes half-closed and her face radiating utter bliss. Somewhat drugged bliss, perhaps, but bliss none the less.

"A what?"

"What's up with her?"

"A Canis Caelorum. And she can speak for herself on the other."

"Hound of Heaven?" Dean blurted, looking down at June with renewed suspicion. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"He smells soooo good," June crooned, rubbing her cheek against the angel's trouser leg. "Like roses, and raspberry leaves, and…" She giggled a tad drunkenly. "Heaven."

"We tend to have a euphoric effect on them, once the initial fear abates," Cas elaborated with a shrug. He looked down at June and snapped his fingers.

Her drowsy, sensual ecstasy disappeared instantly, replaced by an almost rigid attention.

"Off," he said softly.

She crawled backwards with inhuman grace for three strides, then rose to her feet. June blinked, her expression returning to a normal state of alert wariness. Her nose, though, wiggled like a rabbit's.

"We almost ran over her out on the 315," Sam said, looking from the angel to June as if he hadn't seen her before, and wasn't sure he wanted to now. "A werewolf was chasing her."

June dropped her head as Cas turned his attention back to her with divine intensity. "Who is your Pack Leader?"

"Barnabas Elkins, Messenger. But it's not his fault!"

"No, June, I'm sure it's yours," he said with a gentleness that was more chilling than cheering. "I know of Barnabas. Sending one small bitch out after a werewolf isn't a mistake he would make. Why haven't you told them what you are?"

June flicked her eyes towards them both then she edged back towards the angel as the lesser danger. "Because I figured out who _they_ are!"

"So, you're accounting the acts of their father to his children?" Cas lifted an eyebrow. "Our Father does frown on that."

June's chin lifted and her shoulders straightened from their submissive curve. "Our Father also says, as the twig is bent, so grows the tree. I'm not a Messenger, I'm only a mortal instrument. How could I know they wouldn't destroy me the instant I revealed myself as nonhuman, as John Winchester would have?"

"Do you value your life so highly, Canis?" Cas asked.

"Yes, I do!"

"Then why did you stick around?" Dean snapped.

"Because my life has _no_ value if I trade it for the lives of my family, Hunter," she countered just as curtly, looking away from the angel to challenge the gazes of Dean and Sam over her shoulder. "I thought if you knew what I am, you might track me back to them."

"Show them what you fully are, June," Cas said, his voice soft but implacable. "I'll protect you."

June turned her back to the angel then, her entire focus on Sam's eyes.

Dean's mind started making connections. Sam was the one who had bathed her wounds with holy water, bandaged her and wrapped her in a blanket. Invited her home, and opened the door to let her in. He had given her his shirt. The dots didn't quite add up to a picture yet, but there was definitely a pattern there.

She unbuttoned the shirt and twitched her shoulders.

The garment dropped to the floor and as it pooled, she transformed in the same instant. There was a soft _whump_ as air rushed in to fill the space her altered body had left behind. It ruffled her russet fur.

Before the breeze died out, he and Sam had their weapons in their hands and trained on center mass.

If he saw her trotting down a street like that, he'd call her a dog. If he'd seen her out in the woods, he'd probably have called her a wolf. But there was something off, something different about her here-with her standing in front of the fridge while he studied her—that made him certain she wasn't either. She had a barrel chest and a broad head. Thick shoulders and haunches and jaws that could snap a femur like a pretzel stick. All in all, a critter that would make him think twice about hopping over the picket fence and strolling through its yard.

Especially with that body language. Her head was high, her ears were pricked up and forward and she carried her tail straight out and above the level of her spine. Definitely giving the impression she was certain she could handle anything they dished out. Thank you, Animal Planet….

And just because she was standing in what was, at least temporarily, _their_ kitchen, there had to be that factor that kept them all square in the middle of Uncanny Valley. Her eyes were still blue and still fully human, with a lucid gaze she kept nailed to Sam's.

"See? I told you they were like John!" Her voice was now a bass rumble, the words distorted and guttural, but reasonably intelligible.

Dean felt the hair rise on his arms. Of all the freaking weird things he'd seen, it was weirder still that a talking dog even registered on his skin-crawl scale.

"They are not. You are still alive," Cas pointed out. "They have learned to be cautious and to trust no one."

"So, now what?" she asked, only her muzzle moving, not looking away from Sam.

Cas shrugged.

"I'm going to shift back," June said. "Please don't shoot me?"

"No promises," Dean answered.

"Well. Ok. Been nice knowin' ya." June stood back up. She either forgot about the shirt at her feet or just didn't care. His money was on the second.

"What is that, some sort of illusion?" he asked.

June opened her mouth but Cas beat her to the punch. "No. It is exactly what it appears to be."

"That's impossible! Where does the mass go?" Sam asked.

"Nowhere, Einstein," June blurted. "It just changes arrangement. Geez, you see a woman turn into a Canis in front of you and your first question is about physics? What's wrong with you people?"

He shot a look at Sam out of the corners of his eyes that asked the same question.

Sam shrugged slightly and then turned his attention back to June. "We're used to weird."

"Yeah, well guess what, so am I. But those perfectly normal pistols are making me break out in flop sweat. Either use em or put 'em away, ok guys?"

Sam put his away. "If she was gonna attack..."

"She'd have done it by now," he agreed, reluctantly, and tucked his .45 back into his waistband.

She glanced back at Cas. "Keeping them breathing has gotta be a 24/7 proposition for ya, huh?"

"We were the ones who saved your lily-white ass, remember?" Dean said.

Her nose wrinkled and she shoved a hank of hair behind an ear. "Yeah, about that. I am deeply and sincerely grateful to you both for saving my lily-white ass because I did badly underestimate that 'wolf's speed and agility. But I'm not quite as big a cloudlander as the whole scenario makes me seem. He intended to eat some teens out necking. I made myself seem like an easier catch."

"Looked like you did that way too well," Sam pointed out.

"True. I screwed up, ok. There wasn't time to think it through. It was me or those kids. But," she put her fists on her hips. "Guys, you and I both know those monsters are like cockroaches. There's never just one. There's that one, and the one that made him, and the ones he may have made. Our work is not done, Kemosabes."

Dean scrubbed a hand over his face. "Dude- too late for this. I need coffee."

"Sorry, I was going to make some but got sidetracked by the _angelic visitation_!"

"That's just Cas."

"Castiel," the angel corrected gently.

"Cas has a bad habit of poppin' in without callin' ahead," Dean shrugged and headed to the coffee maker. "Anybody else want coffee?"

"Sure."

"No, thank you." Sam and Cas spoke almost at once.

"Just Cas," she muttered, finally scooping up the shirt off the floor and buttoning it to the neck like it was body armor. "Oh, that's just good ol' Cas, my buddy, the _angel_..."

She shot a glance at said angel out of the corner of her eyes. June pulled out a chair and plunked down with zero grace.

"Glad tidings?" she blurted, to no one in particular.

"Yes," Cas said with his deadpan expression and tone. "That is traditionally what is said by an angel delivering a message to a young woman."

"Whoa, hold up Cas!" Sam blurted. "You're here for her?"

"You knew she'd be here?" Dean burst out almost at the same instant.

"Yes, and no, to both questions." Cas looked between them both and for a crazy second Dean was reminded of a big bird. Like, say, a hawk sizing up a mouse.

"I was sent to seek her out, give her this message, and then present her to you if she consented," Cas elaborated. "I did not expect to find her in your kitchen."

"So, coming across her out on the road was just a coincidence, huh?" Sam's voice oozed suspicion.

"There is no such thing," Cas retorted. "Only incomplete revelation."

"That you're operating off of right now," Dean said.

Cas nodded. "As must we all, Dean."

"Then what's the message?" Sam asked.

Cas looked at June with a questioning tilt of his head.

"Yes, please," she whispered. "Tell me. I can't stand the suspense."

She wasn't being flip. She was so pale every freckle stood out like a fleck of gold leaf and Dean was pretty sure her knees were knocking. Truth be told, Cas was making him more than a little nervous, himself.

"You have purpose now," Cas told her.

"I thought I already did." She frowned, looking every bit as confused as she sounded.

"Yes. But now it has changed." He turned his gaze meaningfully towards him and Sam.

June sucked in a sharp breath, as if she'd been slapped. "Why would they need me? I'm nothing."

"They are Hunters. You are a Hound."

Yeah. Thanks Cas. That explains it all. Dean scowled, but Sam spoke first.

"Do we have a say in this?" Sam asked.

"Do you want one?" Cas asked him.

"Hell yeah I do! I'm not going into any kind of deal blind, not even on an angel's word."

"You're saying this is some celestial adopt-a-pet program you're pushing here?" Dean challenged. "Cas, we can barely take care of ourselves, and you're asking us to take on another person—dog—whatever she is?"

June's breath wheezed right back out. Sam looked over at her sharply then moved to grab her shoulders. "Hey, breathe! Don't pass out!"

She looked from Cas, to Dean and then to Sam. Her swallow was audible.

"What troubles you?" Cas asked her, his voice almost tender.

Dean noticed the angel didn't seem the least concerned about his and Sam's misgivings. Great. That boded well for their immediate future.

"We're taught that when Hounds return to Hunters-" she shook her head, her attention shifting from Cas to Sam.

That set off a whole new set of red lights and sirens for Dean.

"Your kind turned against ours so very long ago. It's taught that when a Hunter takes a Hound again, the first Seal will break."

"An apocalyptic seal?" Sam asked.

Her answer was a trickle of air more than sound. "Yes."

"What else is new?" Dean grimaced. "Signs of the Apocalypse have been croppin' up all over lately, sweetheart. Seals popping right and left."

June stiffened, shaking off Sam's hold. "How many have gone?"

"Thirty-four so far."

Her eyes went huge. "But there's only seven!"

"Sixty-six," Sam said.

"Out of a possible six hundred," Dean elaborated.

Her gaze jerked up to Cas's face.

The angel nodded once. "The Seven Seals are for the final Judgment, not the Apocalypse. I am afraid your holy writ has become somewhat adulterated over the centuries."

"_Our_ holy writ?" Sam blurted.

"Yours is tailored to human understanding, as the Canes writ is tailored to theirs." Cas tilted his head, that distant look crossing his face for an instant before he focused on the three of them again.

"Theirs, however, was transmitted via oral tradition for far longer, so has been more prone to copyist error. In all versions, however, one might say that the bottom line remains the same."

June dropped her ashen face into her hands and Dean wondered if she was going to burst into hysterics or just quietly fall out on the floor.

When she lifted her head, her expression was grim, her voice as flat as Cas's. "I need a major intel dump. Obviously my eschatological education hasn't been worth squat."

"That's going to take some time, and a heck of a lot of coffee." Dean went to the burbling maker and poured himself a cup.

"And food," Sam added, "With white gravy."

He smiled at June. She returned a wobbly one of her own and moved to start a search mission in the cabinets.

_*********__** Author's note: ***********_

The prayer June spoke over the werewolf:

_Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord. And let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. Amen._


	2. Chapter 2

Dean mopped up the gravy left on his plate with half a biscuit and consumed most of it in one bite. "Just because we've fed you, don't think you can keep hanging around."

Sam shot him a frown before glancing over at June.

She looked down her nose at Dean, rose and took up her plate and mug. "Don't worry, I won't be begging at the back door if you don't want me here."

June set her dishes in the sink, then approached the table again and dropped a graceful genuflection in Cas's direction. "Thank you for your message, Castiel. May our Father's will be done."

He nodded in return and she left the kitchen. The front door closed a moment later.

"Kneeling to you? Really?" Dean scoffed.

"The dog knows her place," Cas answered with a slight shrug.

"What _is_ her place?" Sam said. "We've been fine on our own. Why are we suddenly supposed to team up with this… woman… who doesn't even know what's going on?"

"She knows now."

"An hour's info dump isn't the same as years of dealing with this life," Sam countered.

"Come on, Cas. What's in it for us? Why do we suddenly need a fuzzy side-kick?" Dean said.

"Why does any hunter require a hound?" Cas tilted his head.

Dean spread his hands, widened his eyes. "Yeah? So? We're not exactly chasing raccoons up trees here."

"Time is critical. You are stalking lions; you do not need to expend your energy guarding yourselves against jackals."

Sam rubbed his forehead, brows drawn together in a pained-looking frown. When he spoke, his voice was sharp, almost angry. "Look, can we drop the stupid metaphor? What, exactly, can June do for us that we can't do for ourselves?"

Cas gave a nod of acquiescence. "Hyper-vigilance exacts a heavy toll on the human mind and body. Among other benefits, her bonded watch-care will allow both of you to deeply sleep at the same time, in safety. That alone will be worth her keep."

"Wow. God cares if I have a posturepedic morning. That's rich, Cas."

Dean's scorn roughly equaled the skepticism on Sam's face.

"What makes you think we'd trust her that far?" Sam asked.

"A solution is offered, but no one can force you to accept it," Cas answered.

"That's not enough," Dean shook his head. "Not to take the risk of dragging around some stranger."

"And putting her in harm's way," Sam added.

"Harm's way is exactly where her kind was created to stand," Cas answered, his calm voice firm. "Demons, powerful ones, oppose you now. They are quite capable of deluding even the most wary human, as you well know."

Sam's jaw tightened and his nostrils flared. Getting pissed. His temper was on a random hair-trigger lately.

Though Dean wasn't far behind him this time. "Exactly. I doubt that girl on the porch has ever been out of the swamps. So how the hell is she going to do us any good against the likes of Lilith?"

"Against her? Perhaps very little. Against the lesser hordes? June will be a valuable weapon, sentry and support. She is stronger and faster than any human more than twice her size. Her senses are more acute than those of bestial canines. These physical capabilities are the lesser advantage, however. Hounds are keenly attuned to detect the presence of a demon, regardless of what form they may take or who they may possess. In addition, a demon cannot sense the presence of a Hound. Unless the Hound is detected with the natural senses, it remains invisible to the demon."

Sam scowled. "How's that possible? I thought souls—glowed—or something, to a demon?"

"They do," Cas agreed with a nod. "Hounds have no souls."

"That's not a positive, Cas," Dean snapped.

"Maybe it is," Sam countered, as the implications sank in. "If she's never had a soul, there's no vacuum for a demon to fill, nothing to possess. She can't be commandeered or manipulated. That could be useful."

"Could be a huge liability, too," Dean said. "That all she's got, Cas?"

"Other than a life-long bond of absolute, irrevocable loyalty and the willingness to lay down her life for either of yours at any moment?" Cas's lips quirked into a hint of a wry smile. "Yes. That's all she's got."

"Whoa. Seriously?" Sam's eyebrows lifted.

"You know it is."

Sam leaned back, his brows drawing together. Cas had scored a major point with him, but damned if Dean knew how.

"Then what's in this deal for Saint June?" Sam asked. "Dean and I are pretty much flat-broke in the selfless virtues department and I don't see that changing."

"I suggest you ask that of her," Cas said.

"And what's this bond you keep mentioning?" Dean added.

"Again, speak to her." Cas vanished.

Sam slapped the table hard enough to make the dishes bounce and rattle. "_DAMMIT!_ I hate when he does that!"

"He does have a thing about getting the last word," Dean grumbled.

"I'll go get June," Sam said and started to rise.

"Wait. Is there some kind of bond between you two?"

Sam sat back down. "There's a connection, I don't know what it is exactly. It's hard to describe."

"Try."

Sam's brow furrowed. "It's as if… I can feel her now, all the time."

"Some sort of mind-meld craziness? Telepathy or something?"

"No, I can't hear her thoughts." Sam shook his head and shoved the salt-shaker around on the table as if it personally aggravated him. "It's more like having another body part. Proprioception, maybe, like how you know where your arm is all the time. Only my new limb is June, and the connection's still dim, like when your arm's numb. But it's getting stronger and clearer, the longer she's around."

Dean wiped a hand over his face. "So you're tellin' me that by this time tomorrow, you're gonna be grokkin' the dog-faced girl?"

Sam snorted a rueful breath. "Yeah, that'd be my best guess."

"Great, just effin' great. And if you're feeling her long-distance, there's no telling what she's picking up from your melon."

"There is that possibility," Sam nodded and Dean was somewhat relieved to see that Sam wasn't all roses and raspberry leaves about that.

"Explain to me why I shouldn't step outside and put a bullet between her eyes, purely as a precaution?"

Sam winced, and cocked his head. "Because I suspect it'll give me one helluva headache? And probably piss off Cas?"

"You sound like you want to stay plugged in to Lassie!"

"I don't!" Sam fired back.

"Then fight this damn bond or whatever the hell it is!" Dean leaned forward. "I think you're lying. I think you want this. Shit, Sam, it's not like this is the first time you've hooked up with some pretty little she-monster. It's just at the other end this time. For now."

Sam stiffened, his eyes going narrow and his jaw tight. Dean was pretty sure he was going to have to block a punch. Instead, Sam's fists stayed by his sides, white at the knuckles as he lurched to his feet.

"Since that's where you're taking this conversation, it's over," Sam snapped and turned to stride out of the kitchen.

"Don't forget your dog!" Dean called after him.

The front door slammed. The Impala's exit showered the cabin with gravel and mud.

Dean leisurely rose, got a beer, and stepped out onto the porch. Out of the corner of his eye he saw June, balled up into as small a space as possible, wedged into one corner of the scabby, rickety porch swing. "And yet, you're still here."

She didn't lift her head off her knees. "I haven't been sent away."

"Scram."

Eyes almost as blue as Cas's lifted to him, cold and flat. "Not your decision to make, Dean."

He pushed against the porch post with his shoulder. When it didn't yield, he leaned back against it. "Not yours either, I take it."

"Nope." She put her head back down on her knees, her arms wrapped tight around her shins. "It's all on Sam now."

Dean lowered the level in his bottle, watching her. Wasn't much to see past a spill of wild, bright red hair, Sam's shirt and bare toes curled against the edge of the swing's seat. "Why are you going along with this bonding craziness with a complete stranger?"

"You don't want to hear my motivations. You want me gone. You're suspicious and protective and you intend me harm." Her voice was flat, resigned maybe.

"And you know this how? This is the longest we've spoken."

"Explain to me why I shouldn't step outside and put a bullet between her eyes, purely as a precaution?" she parroted, head still down. "I've got very good hearing and this cabin has very thin walls."

"Eavesdrop and you'll never hear anything good about yourself." He drained the last of his beer.

"Thank you, Miss Friggin' Manners. I'll keep it in mind for the next time some trigger-happy nutsack is itchin' to blow the back of my head off."

"Since we understand each other so intimately—leave. Now."

Her head came up again. "I _can't._ Unless Sam tells me to, _I can not leave_. You want me gone, refrain from enraging your brother for ten whole minutes and talk him into running me off within the next seventy hours! Or kill me now and be done with it."

"What would that do to Sam?"

She stared back at him, and he didn't detect a flicker of fear. He had a feeling she'd sit right there like a target silhouette while he plugged her. The hair rose on his arms again.

"I don't know. Honest to the Father I don't. You want to risk it, go ahead."

He set his bottle down on the porch rail, drew his pistol and aimed right between those calm, sad eyes. She didn't flinch, didn't react at all. Just watched him with mute resignation. She would die and Sam might feel it. Really, physically feel it. He lowered the pistol.

June uncurled herself to sit relaxed, her legs folded to one side, hands in her lap.

"If you were hearing us, then you know we both want to find out what's in this for you," he gritted.

"A reason to exist," she answered, her voice as neutral as her expression.

"If you're gonna to spout melodramatic horseshit, we're going back to armed hostility. At least that didn't make me want to puke."

"You asked me what's in this deal for me," she answered, her voice taking on a sharp edge. "I gave you the short answer. Shall I elaborate?"

"By all means," he said, inclining his head in a mocking bow.

She looked past him, her eyes going hard and her lips thinning out, then she dragged her gaze back and her expression was neutral again. "No apologies if you still think it's melodramatic horseshit. If you don't like it, stuff it into a small tight orifice."

"I appreciate your delicate non-specificity there."

She obviously didn't appreciate his appreciation. Her voice hoarsened, and a dull, mottled flush spread over her cheeks.

"Me, and all my kind, we were created for Hunters. Without that bond, there's always this huge sucking hole in the center of all of us. For freakin' _centuries_ we've lived and died knowing we've not been able to fulfill our one true purpose. We've waited for a Hunter to accept one of us again like y'all waited for the advent of the Son."

"Hang on a second." He wiggled a finger in his ear with a grimace. "I must be goin' deaf, because I could swear I just heard you say that Sam's the Hound Messiah."

"He is."

Dean wasn't sure what to do first, burst out laughing or back off away from the scorch zone in case lightning took her out. He settled for laughing until it was a good thing he was propped up against that post.

"Have you regained bladder control?" she snapped when he wound down.

"Crap, I won't shoot you just for that. I needed a good laugh," he gasped, wiping his eyes. "Go on, I'm listening."

She was approximately the color of a ripe tomato now, and her words came out as if they were bitten off a spool.

"Yes, your brother is a messiah, in the general sense of 'rescuer of a heck of a lot of people.' And since you two were obviously conjoined until sometime early last week—I suspect you will be too." Her gaze on him now was distinctly sour. "Which just goes to prove that Father's ways truly are mysterious and unknowable—and that a jackass will serve a divine purpose again."

Despite his best efforts, which were minimal he had to admit, he started spluttering again.

"Go ahead, yuk it up. Doesn't change a thing. Sam is the fulfillment of that prophecy. You might want to know what else it says. When that Seal breaks, Hell will be released onto Earth. The prophesied Hunter and Hound will cut a wide swathe through the entire demonic population to ensure that Evil's forces are thinned enough for Good to triumph."

She stood then, her arms crossed over her chest and chin lifted to a regal angle. A commanding posture which, considering she was barely five-four and had hair the color of Bozo's, wasn't very intimidating.

"No matter how much that's exaggerated, it's still an awesome responsibility and honor. Add to that the fact that you guys have a blazin' rep, all on your own. And let's not overlook the whole angelic proclamation thing, which I didn't expect at all. It's heady stuff to think I've been tapped for the first-string by Father Himself. You want to know what's in it for me, here's what's in it for me. If Sam accepts me, I become the Canis Major of my entire species. Top dog forever."

Dean gave her a few sardonic claps. "Congratulations! You've won the Outrageous Bullshit of the Year award."

"Then I have issues with the judges' review," she fired back, "So don't go engraving the plaque just yet."

"I'll tell you one thing, Fido. If there's a God, and he loves us, he'll let me see Sam's face when you lay all this on him."

"What will you do if he believes me?" she asked sweetly.

That wiped his smirk right off. "I'll make sure he doesn't."

"How? I doubt you'll threaten _him_ with violent death, and you sure haven't wasted much beguiling charm on either of us tonight." She gazed off past his shoulder then, in the general direction Sam had taken. "But he's a lot less tense now than he was—so, good luck with that. I'll be back when he is."

She shucked Sam's shirt over her head, draped it neatly across the swing, and hopped over the porch rail into the rain. She didn't shape-shift till she was almost past the light thrown from the cabin. He knew she did that on purpose, the smart-ass little bitch.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

He'd give her one thing, she stuck to her word. It was practically a monsoon out there but he didn't see literal hide or hair of June the rest of the night.

Didn't give her whereabouts the next morning much thought either, until a savage salvo of barking jolted him straight up in bed, his heart about to pound out of his chest. Gun in hand, he didn't get far past the bedroom door when he heard Sam yell "JUNE! It's me!"

The quiet after that upped his speed through the cabin. He vaulted the couch and burst out the front door to see his brother being held at bay on the porch steps by a very angry naked June. Who was still snarling like a hellhound, despite the fact she looked about as canine as Sam. It was a tossup which one of them he'd call most dangerous at the moment.

"What the hell is going on?" Dean demanded.

"Ask him why the hell he _smells_ like that!" June advanced on Sam, who held his ground.

"Like what, you rabid mutt?" Dean snapped. "Have you lost your mind?"

"No, but I'm pretty damn sure he's lost his!" she fired back, still staring down Sam.

"What do I smell like, June?" Sam's voice was soft and even and the hair rose on the back of Dean's neck. Nothing pretty ever happened when Sam took that tone with a weapon in his fist.

"You know exactly what you smell like." She all but spat the words at him. "You don't come in high as a damn satellite and reekin' like that from bein' in a fight, Sam, so try another lie. I'm not that friggin' stupid!"

Sam didn't pull the trigger on her. In fact, he lowered his pistol, but Dean still felt like he'd just taken a shot to the gut. "High? Sam what the—?"

"Get away from me," Sam hissed, and Dean wasn't sure which of them he was talking to. June staggered to one side as if she'd been shoved. Hell, maybe she had been. Who knows what that bitch's bond mojo was doing to Sam on top of all his other freak?

Sam was capable of slamming his shoulder against Dean's blocking move hard enough to leave a bruise, that was certain. June nearly mowed him down following Sam, but they wound up accidentally compromising by pushing through the doorway side by side.

In the hall doorway, Sam rounded on June again. "My smell, huh? My evil tainted stench? Figures Cas would drop someone on us who adores my brother and attacks me like I'm some abomination!"

June gasped. "No, Sam! That's not—"

Dean groaned. "Sam—wait!"

Sam turned and slammed the bathroom door. The lock clicked.

"Sam? Come on," Dean called through the door. The only reply was the shower starting full blast.

"Sam?" June tried, laying a palm against the door like she was touching Sam instead. "Please, just listen to m…"

Dean grabbed her by the arms and lifted her off her feet with a grunt. She was a lot heavier than she looked. She gave a startled yip and squirmed out of his grasp.

"_You_ don't touch me like that!" she snapped.

"Woman," he gritted. "I'm just this close to slinging you out the nearest window." He pointed to the front door. "Out. Now. You've caused enough trouble to last us a friggin' month already!"

Her eyes narrowed. "Fuck you, Winchester!"

Damn she could move fast. He jerked back, thinking she was rushing him, but it was the door that was her target. She slammed her shoulder against it and the flimsy privacy lock popped open, spilling her into the bathroom. She rolled up onto her feet and kept moving forward without breaking momentum. Right through the shower curtain and damn near right up Sam's shins.

"No, Sam! You do _not _get to tell me what I think and storm off! What you said out there is bullshit. You didn't smell like you do when you left here last night! I smell that stink coming up on me from a sound sleep and how the fuck do you expect me to react?"

He slapped the water off and wrapped a towel around his waist. "You have no right to question me about anything. Get out of the shower!"

June gasped, clapping her hand over her mouth and nose. "No! Oh no! Sam! Have you gone insane? I thought you stank because you fucked one of them but that filthy smell is coming off your _breath_!"

Dean instantly felt as disgusted and sick as June looked. "Sam—"

Sam rounded on him, and yeah, right then he looked insane. Pupils blown wide and black, lips drawn back from his teeth. "I'm doing what I have to do!" he roared.

June snarled, staring up at Sam, one predator to another. Dean choked back bile. Was there one monster bristling in that shower, or two?

A hand landed on his shoulder and Dean jerked all over.

"Listen. Observe," Cas whispered by his ear.

Dean opened his mouth to protest. Nothing came out.

June gave Sam a jab to the kidney and he turned on her like a cornered bull. June didn't back off an inch.

"I have _every_ right to question you about this!" she yelled up into his face. "You explain why you committed this revolting perversion or you send me away _now_!"

"I did it because I'm using her! She's making me strong. Strong enough to do what I have to do to kill her. I have to avenge Dean. Nobody else can do it. Nobody else _will_ do it!"

Sam's voice rang off the tile, so loudly June flinched and Dean wanted to.

"You _are_ strong, you stupid nimrod!" June yelled back. "Yes, _please _kill her, but trust me, hot shot, drinking her to death a pint at a time is going to take too damn long! _Yes_, avenge Dean but don't let your vengeance buy you an eternity to regret your monumental stupidity!"

"Don't you understand English, you stupid little twat? I don't want to kill Ruby! She's giving me the power I need to kill _Lilith!_"

_SAM, NO! _In his mind it was a shout, but it didn't make it out as so much as a whisper. Dean surged against Cas's hold, but the light touch on his shoulder kept him pinned in his tracks.

"Holy God help us all!" she burst out, eyes wide and shocked. "No wonder you need a Hound! Are you really so delusional you think this is the best way to go about that?"

"It's the only way," Sam ground out. "And I don't care who I have to use to do it. I don't care what I have to do. I don't care if that makes me evil, or a monster or screaming bat-shit crazy, as long as it gets me Lilith dead at my feet."

Dean was shaking now, but Cas still held him immobile and mute.

"Then use _me_ instead! It's what I'm here for! You think you need some kind of sick blood-drinking ritual to do it? I'll give you blood!" Like a striking snake, she bit into her own forearm then held the dripping wound out to him.

Sam grabbed his wash cloth, wrapped it around her arm then twisted that arm till June went to her knees in front of him. He crouched down, his face inches from hers.

"You think this is all some psychosis? You think you can play into my perverted delusions and wheedle me into doing whatever you and Cas want?" He flung her arm away.

"You know that's not true," she said, her voice softer. She rose to her feet again. "You _know_ my intentions towards you. Just like I know that whatever you think Ruby's giving you is a lie. She's not on your side, Sam. She can't be."

"Then you don't know as much as you think you do," he told her, his voice a harsh rasp. "She helps us. A thousand times over she could have killed me but instead she saved my life, more than once."

"And now she's ruining it, swallow by swallow."

Sam gave an ugly laugh. "Try stronger, swallow by swallow. Try more powerful. More powerful than you can imagine."

"Try more psychotic than you can imagine," she snapped. "You know why psychotics can seem super-human strong, Sam?"

She stepped closer, and curved her hands around his sides. She might as well have been embracing a telephone pole for all Sam responded.

"They seem so strong because they're so delusional they can't feel the pain while they tear themselves apart at the joints. Please- listen to me. You say you're doing this because you want to avenge the wrong that was done to Dean. That's not a bad motive at all. I'm all for slaying demons and making them pay for what they did to your brother and to you. I know you love your brother. I can imagine how much his pain hurts you. But Sam, love doesn't rip people apart at the joints and love doesn't make deals with evil. It can't."

"I have," he told her, his voice low and dead. "More than once. So even you're saying that makes me an abomination. One of the monsters. Might as well accept it and live down to everybody's expectations. At least I'll gain Lilith's death out of it all."

"No, that's not what I'm saying. Sam, the only thing that's an abomination here is that belief, and whoever _did_ tell you that is as evil as they come!"

Sam's eyes went to Cas. "Then it's ironic that it was an angel that passed that judgment, huh?"

"Because my… superior… told me so," Cas said. "But he was wrong."

June rubbed her cheek against Sam's wet chest and gave Cas a look that should have made the angel burst into flame.

Dean was pretty sure he was at the spontaneous combustion point all on his own. He jerked against Cas's touch. He might as well have been trying to free himself from the center of a block of granite.

June went on. "Why would your superior tell you such a terrible thing? What reason can there possibly be that would make that judgment just? Can an angel lie?"

"I cannot presume to know the motivations of those higher in rank," Cas answered in that 'time and temperature' monotone of his. "We cannot lie, but we are not omniscient. Therefore, I presume it was a tragic misunderstanding of Sam's complex situation."

"That's a neat way of summing it up all nice and sanitized for her protection," Sam snapped.

He looked back at June and grasped her chin, tilting her head up to him at an angle that must have skated along the border of painful.

"This smell on my breath?" he hissed. "Maybe it's not all Ruby's skank. She's not the first demon I've tasted. A demon dripped its blood into my mouth when I was six months. So yeah, I'm tainted. I stink like the pit, inside and out. I'm a freak and a psycho and hey, popular opinion says I'm voted most likely to become a monster."

June jerked her chin out of his grasp. "Bullshit. Whatever happened to you, you have the gift of free will, Sam. Use it."

She turned to Cas then, anger still blazing on her face, her voice low and savage. "I don't care what you do and don't presume here, Messenger! We both work for the same Father, so I don't give a shit what your department superior said! I don't answer to him or to you! You tell me right now why that poison was allowed to be given to a sinless innocent! You tell me if it was allowed to have power over him, or if this is only his self-loathing talking!"

"Your devotion is outstripping your prudence, dog. I can destroy you with a thought."

She went to her knees, but she didn't bow her head and her eyes blazed with defiance. "Then do so, and may the Father judge your wrath. Or show mercy and explain this mystery so I can help the Hunter I have been created to serve."

Dean closed his eyes, certain he was going to get a face full of puree of June.

Instead he heard Cas's voice. "Azazel was permitted to do so by Zachariah."

June gasped. "The yellow-eyed one! Why?"

Dean opened his eyes. At least he could move that much.

"I do not know why this was allowed to happen. I do not know how much power the blood has over him. Such knowledge is considered… above my pay grade."

He wasn't certain, but there might have been the slightest tinge of resentment in Cas's voice.

Cas lifted his hand, and Dean was finally able to move and speak.

"About damn time!" he snapped, then looked at Sam. "You can cut the crap about this little kink of yours being all about revenge for what I went through. That demon killed _our_ mother and _our_ Dad and almost you too. You're not the only one dancing with the devil at this party, and you're not the only one who can play the martyr card. You're not the only one to cut a deal with evil out of love. Mom did, I did, Dad did. It's the fuckin' Winchester family tradition! I went to _Hell_ for you because I couldn't let you die in that piss-eyed bastard's war game. And I don't regret that. If I was still down there, it would be worth it. I don't blame you for any of that. It's all on Piss-eyes. But then I get yanked back topside and find you all wrapped up in Ruby and chugging demon blood? Strange way to express brotherly love and honor your family's memory there, Sammy! That dirt's on you. That's all _you_."

Sam stepped over June like a footstool to confront him. "Where the _fuck_ do you get off saying you've never laid a guilt trip on me? All my life I've been hearing how I'm a freak and dangerous and I might just explode one day and take the whole world down bloody! You go on and on about family and sticking together because we're brothers and how it's you and me against the monsters and the fucking Winchester curse, but you know and I know that deep down? Deep down you think I'm just another monster and you're counting off the days till you decide I have to be taken out because our sainted holy Dad's last words to you were an order to kill me!"

"Grow up, Sam and grab some reality while you're at it! Dad told me to watch over you and protect you, unless you went completely off the rails and I'm not the only one who's seein' you swaying on the tracks here. _You're_ the one who—"

"STOP IT!"

Good lord, the woman had a set of lungs on her. Her shout was so loud, so unexpected, he and Sam both started and blinked.

"Sssshhh… cease fire for just a few seconds, ok?" June rose and laid a hand on them both. "Look, guys. I'm not going to say I have an inkling who you really are or what your lives have been like."

She gave a rueful little chuff of breath. "You've certainly got 'I grew up a shape-shifter runt in the boondocks' knocked clean off the childhood trauma scale. And I don't have a lonesome clue how to go about fixing what's broken between you. But I can already tell that you're both so close, and in so much pain, that you lash out and wound each other so often that neither of you can heal."

"I shall return," Cas said and vanished.

"Yeah, well don't rush yourself, MacArthur," Dean grumbled under his breath.

"Then what do you suggest we do about it, Saint June?" Sam asked, his voice taking on an angry edge once more.

June jerked her hand away from him. "First and foremost, I strongly suggest you sober up and stay away from that stinkin' wh—"

Dean yanked her out of the shower. This time, she didn't fight him on it. "I strongly suggest you stop poking the bear with a sharp stick until he finishes his shower."

He turned her around, planted both hands on her bare ass, and shoved.

She allowed herself to be propelled out of the bathroom. Dean closed the door back behind her, for what good that would do, and turned to glare at Sam. "This ain't settled, Sammy."

Sam jerked the shower curtain closed and the water ran again. Dean shook his head and left him to it.


	4. Chapter 4

Dean followed the clatter of clashing crockery into the kitchen. At first glance, it was a toss-up if she was washing the dishes, or just smashing them in the sink.

He leaned against the edge of the counter and looked her up and down. Not his type, but he could get used to this. "Not a shade modest, are you?"

"What is this 'modest' of which you speak?" She went tiptoe to put the mugs away in the cabinet. "Dang, whoever hung these must have been taller than Sam. Actually, I think you're both pathetically inhibited."

He shook his head. "Inhibited. Not something I've ever heard about myself."

"Well, sorry sugar, but this seems to be the day for uncomfortable revelations."

He pulled off his t-shirt and handed it to her. She exhibited further lack of inhibition by holding it to her face and drawing a deep breath before she tugged it over her head and smoothed it down over her body way too slowly, challenge in her eyes.

That could get old real fast. "What's Sam feeling right now?" he snapped.

She looked towards the bathroom. "Top notes: Raging furious, drugged-up agitated, confused. Humiliated. Betrayed. Bottom notes, maybe chronic: Scared. Ashamed. Regretful. A touch self-righteous. Oh, and he has to take a dump." Her eyes narrowed. "Just so we're clear? That's the last time I do that for you."

"So it's mental as well as physical, what you pick up."

"Nuh uh. Emotional and physical. Raw intel from his nervous system, muscles and maybe hormones. I'll never be able to read his mind."

His gut tightened.

"Don't get your panties in a wad, I'll never be able to control him or anything like that. It's not some magical spell or an enthrallment. "

"Out there on the porch," he gritted, "It looked like he pushed you with his mind."

"One way of putting it, I guess. He moved me because right at that instant all he wanted was for me to get the holy hell out of his way. It caused a physical reflex in me, like when you jerk your hand away from a hot stove before you have time to realize what happened. Caught me by surprise. I'm not used to it yet."

"I bet." He watched her dry a plate with meticulous precision. "So he can yank you around like a marionette, but you can't do the same to him."

A shoulder lifted and fell.

"Wow. Sucks to be you, huh?"

"Price of admission, Dean." Her head jerked around towards the doorway, shock on her face. "Holy CRAP!

The crash of splintering glass almost drowned out her exclamation. They both took off at a flat run for the bathroom. Dean shoved the bathroom door open in time to see Sam slam the shattered medicine cabinet against the far wall.

"SAM!"

His brother rounded on him like an animal on the verge of charging, head down, shoulders rounded, crouched. Sam shuddered and shoved a bleeding hand through his wet hair as he straightened and drew a deep breath.

"Dean, don't," he gritted out. "Just…. Don't."

Sam moved towards the door. Dean stepped out of his way this time. June practically turned herself wrong-side out to scuttle out of Sam's path, cringing like a kicked puppy and panting like she'd run a minute mile.

"What the hell is that stuff doing to him?" Dean gasped as the front door slammed against its frame hard enough to shake the whole cabin.

June was looking pretty damn green around the gills. "Nothing good," she wheezed. "But he has to burn it off somehow."

He watched her like a bug under a microscope as she pulled her composure back together. "How long?"

"How should I know? I must have slept through Introduction to Demonic Pharmacology." She paced the short hall, her breathing still quick and shallow. Her eyes kept flicking towards the front of the cabin, as if she could follow his brother's trajectory somehow.

"I'm going after him," Dean stated. He went into the bedroom, pulled on another t-shirt. June's hand landed on his arm. He stared at it and she jerked it away.

"Wait," she urged. "Dean, it's like he's stoked on angel-dust to the eyes. I don't know how he held it together as much as he did. We're about a square mile from anybody right now, so let him blow his stack where it can do no harm."

"To anyone but him."

"He has no urge to self-destruct," she whispered.

Dean felt his jaw clench. "An hour," he gritted. "An hour, then I go after him. And you're going to guide me straight to him."

She nodded, not meeting his eyes.


	5. Chapter 5

Fifty-three minutes later, the front door opened and Sam walked back in. His pupils were still black holes in his face and he was breathing heavily, nostrils flared. Every line of his body screamed rage, and Dean didn't need some Canis weirdness to hear that loud and clear. June moved towards Sam but stopped short three feet away, as if she'd smacked into a glass wall.

"Sam, this—" he began, trying to keep his own anger on a tight leash.

Sam held up a hand.

God help him, that simple gesture sent a shaft of cold fear through his gut.

"Stop," Sam said, his voice just above a gritty whisper. His uplifted hand began to tremble. "Please."

June went to him then, pressing her side along his hip. She reached and took that hand as it dropped. "You're hurt," she whispered, cradling it in her palm.

Sam's hands looked like he'd gone ten rounds with a brick wall. "It's not important," he said, looking down at her, his voice still a hoarse whisper.

Never taking her eyes off his, she grasped a crooked finger and gave it an abrupt jerk. Sam blurted a sharp grunt as the dislocated joint slid back into alignment. He drew his hand away from hers and dropped his arm around her shoulders.

"None of this," he said in a louder voice, looking at Dean, "is important." June moving beside him like part of his body, Sam dropped onto the couch. He clasped his hands between his knees, hunched over, and Dean could see then Sam shook all over.

"You're drinking demon's blood again, Sam. I say that qualifies as pretty damn impor-"

"We're staring down the barrel of the end of the _damn world, Dean!" Sam interrupted. June flinched at the blasphemy, but she stayed silent, still pressed against Sam.

"I thought about what happened today and realized it all came out in the open in there." Sam swallowed hard, "We finally both admitted that deep down, where it counts, we think about what's happened as if it's all about us. Our pain. Our revenge. Our precious little family and the pathetically _insane_ lengths we'll go to protect each other. We've had our heads up our asses so long we lost sight of the big picture here."

"It doesn't matter what Lilith does to us." Sam's head dropped, shoulders sagging as the furious tension bled out of him. His voice flattened out into a weary, monotone litany. "It's pointless to keep wailing about how evil ol' Yellow-eyes killed Mom, poisoned me and ate Dad's soul. Nobody but us gives a shit about how much you suffered in Hell. Doesn't make a bit of difference what Ruby's real motives are, or if we've been punked by an angel or if Cas is telling us God's honest truth."

Sam's head came up and he stared into his eyes, his own back to dull hazel. "What really important, the only thing about any of it that ever mattered, is that the sun keeps rising, and that there are human beings left on this sorry chunk of rock to see it happen. The _only_ thing that ought to matter to us now is stopping those seals from breaking, because if we don't, there'll be _**nothing**_ left to matter at all!"

"Ok. Point taken. Can't argue with savin' the world. Not like we have an escape hatch." Dean wiped a hand over his mouth, feeling pretty shaken up himself. "But do you really think drinking demon's blood is gonna help us do that?"

"Gah! Dean!" Sam burst out. "Will you listen to yourself for once? We're deep behind enemy lines in the last battle on the planet and we're bare-assed defenseless! You think it makes one friggin' bit of difference which side dropped the weapons we pick up?"

"A Pack divided against itself devours itself," June murmured.

"What?" Dean wouldn't have been much more startled if one of the couch cushions had commented. He'd forgotten she was there.

"A Pack divided against itself devours itself," she said in a firmer voice. "That's in our holy writ- for what that's worth now."

"A house divided against itself cannot stand," Dean replied. "It's in ours too. So yeah, you can still believe that part."

Sam's expression was one of appalled disbelief. "This is the Apocalypse. The End of Everything! It doesn't matter what happens to us, or how we do what we have to do. The only thing that matters is that we keep it from happening. If ever there was a time when the end justifies the means, this is it!"

Dean leaned back, and shook his head. "It's all so obvious now, we oughta gank our own dumb asses and collect our Darwin Awards. Think about it, Sam—why would Lilith, or Ruby, or Barney the Purple Dinosaur leave suitcase nukes laying around _knowing_ we'll pick 'em up and use 'em against them?"

"But Ruby is on our si—"

"Up Ruby's sulphurous ass! She's a demon, Sam. Demons lie. They _always_ lie. Why would any _other_ big bad give you a neutron bomb in a briefcase?"

"To remotely detonate it where it'll do the most damage, while I'm carrying it around." Sam dragged his hands through his hair, then dropped his head into them. "Then tell me this," Sam said, his voice muffled, defeated. "How do we fight when the only weapons we have that'll work are the ones the enemy has given us?"

_'You've got the keys, now shut up and drive, drive, drive. Shut up and drive, drive, drive!' _

They all nearly jumped out of their skins. "Rihanna, Sam? Really? Has it gone that far?"

Sam fumbled his phone out of his pocket and cut Rihanna off mid-admonition. "Can it. It's Bobby. Hey Bobby."

Bobby's distinctive growl came through the speaker almost undiminished. "Hey, you and your brother better shag ass to my place ASAP."

"What's going on?"

"The Apocalypse, genius. Now get your asses over here."

Sam stuck his phone back into his pocket. "You heard the man," he muttered, hauling himself to his feet.

"No pithy comments from you, Snoopy?" Dean asked as June unfolded herself from the couch much more lithely than either of them managed.

"Do you _ever_ stop with the snark?"

Sam answered for him on his way to the bedroom. "No. He doesn't."


	6. Chapter 6

Dean rolled his shirts and stuffed them into his duffle. "So what about Zippy the Wonder Weenie out there?"

"Where does that even come from?"

"Just answer the question."

"We take her with us." Sam crammed his dopp bag into the end of his pack.

"How's that supposed to work exactly?"

Sam zipped his pack and began loading up his laptop. "She opens the back door, puts her butt on the seat and you drive."

"So you're down with the whole bonding thing then, BFFs for life and fleas in your bed."

"She's useful."

"How? All I've seen her do is scarf our food and aid and abet you wrecking the bathroom. Oh, excuse me, she did reset your dislocated finger, but you could have done that by sticking your hand in your pocket."

Sam straightened, and Dean almost drew back from the sudden fire in his brother's eyes. "She's helping me right now. Right this minute. Think about it, Dean. Less than two hours ago I was a raging maniac, and now this? Much as I'd like to claim the whole nerves of steel thing? This control isn't all my own."

Dean's blood iced over. "What's she doing to you?"

"She's not doing anything _to_ me, she's doing this _for_ me. She's pulling a lot of the agitation away, like opening a floodgate to keep a dam from bursting."

"And you were going to get around to telling me about this when?"

"I'm telling you now."

Dean dropped his gun case on the bed and went to stand in front of Sam. "Sam, listen to me. If she's this wired into you now, what's it going to be like if you go the whole nine yards? Which of you is really going to be in control? I'd rather splatter that bitch all over the walls than see you walking around as some… thing's… meat-puppet again."

"She can hear you," Sam retorted.

"I don't care!" Dean's voice rose on every syllable. "You're already tuned to Radio Free June as it is and sounds to me like it's only going to get worse when she rips off the knobs!"

"You can't feel what it's like and I can't make you feel it." Sam's voice came out as soft as his had been loud. "No more than I could make you understand blue if you'd been born blind. She's helping me, and she can take some of the load off you if you'll let her. Cas said she's immune to demons, that they can't sense her. If she can get us within striking distance of Lilith somehow, then I'm willing to let her-"

"Do whatever the hell she wants to you." Dean snapped. "I'm sorry, Sammy, but you gotta know I don't put a whole lot of stock in your discernment right now."

Sam's expression went tight and blank. He jerked up his bags. "She's going to Bobby's with me. It's up to you if we all go in the same car."

"Sam—" Dean was talking to his brother's back before the word was out of his mouth.

He followed Sam out into the living room. June was standing by the front door at prim attention with an expectant look on her face like some pocket-sized Stepford wife.

Sam didn't look up from gathering the papers scattered over the coffee table. "Where's home, June?"

"Oddly enough, only about a mile from here," she answered.

Sam looked out the window as if he could see the place. "Go grab your gear. We have to book but I don't think it's a good idea to haul you across five states in nothing but Dean's shirt. I'll pick you up at the first cross-roads north."

She nodded and took off out of the house in a sprint that would make Flo-Jo weep with envy.

"So now we're going to wait for her to pack up her chew toys and lick mommy and daddy goodbye? Bobby said to haul ass, Sam."

"You feel the need to leave now, I'm not stopping you."

"Do you even know what you're getting into here? I'm not all empathic and up her butt like you are, but if I was in your shoes? I wouldn't agree to one friggin' thing until I worked my way through every single word of the fine print on this contract."

"It's over a thousand miles to Sioux Falls. Twenty hours, give or take. I figure that's plenty of time for us _all_ to talk it over." Sam sounded serene as a monk. Even his body language read relaxed now.

Dean's teeth gritted together. Creepy Calm Sam would get on his last nerve before they hit Shreveport. "Is she doing that again?"

"Doing what?"

"Remote-control Valium."

Sam moved to the door and picked up the car keys. He looked back at Dean with a smirk. "Don't make me angry, Dean. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

"Up yours, Ginormo."

Sam chuckled as he went out the door. Dean shuddered and followed, not sure Sam wouldn't leave him standing stranded.

-oOo-

Dean squinted up the road to where June stood on the shoulder, a loaded backpack and duffle at her feet, her red hair gleaming in the early afternoon sun.

"Dean—"

"I'm stopping," he countered, though he took private pleasure in making sure it was a good five car-lengths past her. He almost tapped the gas as she caught up.

Sam's foreboding scowl flashed fast enough to let him know his brother was way ahead of him there, so all the fun went out of it. Instead, he lolled at his leisure while Sir Samuel gallantly got out and loaded up her crap, even opened the back door for her.

"Did your Pack give you any trouble over leaving?" Sam asked as Dean pulled back out onto the road.

"No."

Sam wasn't buying it. Dean didn't care one way or the other. In fact, the more she spoke in monosyllables the better, as far as he was concerned.

"None?" Sam pressed.

June dropped her sunglasses from the top of her head onto her nose. "They expressed their opinion. All in the rearview, Sam. Bigger issues to deal with here."

"Speaking of the elephant that's crappin' all over the room," Dean interjected, "How about you explaining exactly what this bond means? What it would do to Sam, and don't leave out so much as a 'may cause daytime drowsiness.'"

"I'll do my best, Dean," she answered with dubious meekness.

"Your best? Does that mean you don't know?" Sam asked, turning in his seat to face her.

Well yippy ki yi yay, Sam sounded sanely suspicious at last.

She stuck her sunglasses on top of her head again. "It means, if you'd asked me day before yesterday, I'd have been certain what I told you was the truth. But after everything that's happened?"

June spread her hands. "Guys, it's been at least two thousand years since there's been a bonding. It's practically myth now. Some of us don't even believe in it any more. There's not exactly a Merck's Manual on this available anywhere, even for the true believers."

"And which are you?" Dean asked.

She smiled. "True believer, of course. I've always been a devout person."

Dean gave a snort of amusement at that. Devout, with a trailer-trash vocabulary and all the modesty of a cheap stripper.

She didn't let his amusement slow her down. "But even if I wasn't, I'd have to believe now. There's no denying what's happened between us."

"Then tell me what's taught about this," Sam urged.

"One better," Dean added, catching her eyes in the rearview. "Explain to me first exactly what's going on now between you and Sam."


	7. Chapter 7

She nodded, a line of tension folding between her eyebrows. "I'll start at the very beginning, and Dean? Please don't make fun of me. I promise I'll be objective and as precise as I can be."

"Ok, hey, you got it." He lifted his right hand in a pledge. "This car's a snark-free zone for the duration."

It was Sam who said a soft thank you, and somehow that seemed eerie.

June gazed out between them through the windshield and Dean was struck by the resemblance to Cas' thousand-yard stare.

"When I first saw you, you were simply two humans I felt I had to protect, helpless prey for that were-wolf. When you killed him like that—well, it dawned on me that you were Hunters instead of plain vanilla yahoos with guns. I mean, who else goes around with clips of silver bullets?"

Dean chuffed a breath, but for once he didn't load any scorn in it. Plain vanilla they had never been. Yahoos? Well, matter of opinion there.

"It wasn't until Sam poured that holy water over my back and started talking to me, though, that something really weird started happening."

Her voice took on a stressed edge, and Dean glanced at her in the mirror. The line of tension between her eyes deepened and doubled.

"I'm sorry, I can't tell you why it happened or even precisely what it was that happened. It was like, the more we spoke to each other, the longer we were close together, the more I liked him and trusted him and I didn't know why I was doing that and it really scared me."

She drew a deep breath and when she spoke again her voice was rushed. "It was like I was two people. Normal Me, who knew that it was crazy to trust strangers like you two in a situation like that, and Bizarro Me who was willing to do whatever it took to convince you to take me with you, just so I could stay close to Sam. I didn't do it on purpose, Dean! I swear to the Father I didn't do any of this on purpose!"

Sam reached over the seat to touch her. "It's ok, June. It was like that for me, too. Instant, irrational simpatico. I don't think you started it, and I know I didn't. It just happened, like opposite magnets snapping together when they get close enough."

She lifted his hand and rubbed her cheek against it, careful of his scabbed over wounds. He smiled at her and when she released his hand, he gave a lock of her hair an affectionate tug.

Dean's eyes narrowed, watching that. Intimate as lovers, and he knew for certain exactly how intimate they, well, hadn't been. To all normal appearances, any way. Normal… yeah, like that had ever happened for a Winchester, concerning anything in the dictionary.

"After that," she went on as Sam leaned back in the front seat, "It got even worse. Well, honestly, for me it got a whole heck of a lot better, but I know you don't see it that way, Dean. Every hour, sometimes every minute that passed, I was more and more aware of Sam. Physically, at first. Then the emotions started coming through."

"Like I told you," Sam nodded to Dean. "As if she were another body part."

"So, her experience is pretty much mirrored by yours?" Dean asked him.

"Yes, except that I can manipulate her physically, and I don't think she can do the same to me."

"I can't," she agreed. "Trust me, if I could, your hands wouldn't look like you've bitch-slapped a cheese grater."

"So when I was out in the woods, you felt all that?"

"Every merry methed-out moment. Yes Sam. Thanks heaps."

Sam sort of wilted for a second or two, then his expression cleared.

Balm of June, Dean suspected. "Is all this still growing stronger?"

June shook her head, a motion exactly synched with Sam's. Weird, weirder weirdest.

"Gotta admit," Sam said, "What's already linked up between us is amazing. I can't imagine how bonding's going to improve on it. What's your tradition? What do your people say happens?"

"And how does it happen?" Dean added. "We're not going to have to slaughter goats or god forbid some hapless virgin are we? 'Cause goats we can do but virgins are pretty damn thin on the ground these days."

She giggled. He couldn't decide whether to feel complimented or hope she didn't make it a habit.

"No virgins. Sorry Dean. No goats either, well, unless you want to celebrate with a barbeque. Yum."

"Maybe when we have time to dig a pit and do it right," Sam smiled.

"Ok," she said, leaning forward to rest her chin on her forearms, folded on the seatback between them. "This is all tradition and religious dogma from here, so take it with a grain of salt. From what Castiel said, as hard as we tried, it wound up being just a big, revered game of telephone. Anyway, there's all this rigmarole attached to it, but the gist seems to be that Sam and I have to be willing, and within the grace period. Meh, what's called the Introspection Time, but whatever. When we decide to seal the deal, we touch each other and, oh heck, this is gonna freak you right out, Dean, but it's said we 'release our oneness,' whatever that means."

She sighed. "Apparently then the heavens open and angels sing and we see at least the hem of Father's garment and feel eternal bliss and taste manna, so your mileage may vary at that point."

"Wow. Do your people use hallucinogens in worship?" Sam asked.

June giggled again. "Sorry, no. Which makes all that sound even more woo-woo bonkers, huh?"

Dean shrugged. "Good trip, bad trip, what's coming through loud and clear is that it's one with no return ticket."

"Any mention of side effects? Drawbacks?" Sam asked.

"Things that can go horribly, horribly wrong?" Dean added.

She obviously was searching her memory banks with all due diligence.

"No," she said after a few long moments, with a shake of her head. "Not that I've ever heard of. The only thing close to a drawback is that we'll be increasingly uncomfortable the farther and longer we're separated from one another. So if we do this, you're both kinda stuck with me. No dumping me off behind a white picket fence somewhere. Or a razor wire one."

Sam turned to look at her again, his face solemn and Dean knew exactly what he was going to ask, as if he was the one plugged into his brother's emotions.

"What happens when one of us dies?"

"Honestly, I don't know. All I have to offer is tradition." She matched Sam's somber tone. Dean's shoulders tightened.

"If you're the survivor," she went on, "I assume you'll grieve, but it's said that the mercy of the closeness for the Hunter is that no matter how pleasant the connection, it's not equally painful when the bond is severed. In fact, it's said that being opened to one Hound makes it easier to accept another if you're bereft."

Dean felt the knot in the middle of his back ease, though he suspected Sam would take that loss a lot harder than June seemed to predict.

"What about for you? What if I go first?" Sam asked.

"Odds are, I'll die shortly after you."

"Suicide?" Sam blurted, aghast.

"Maybe. Some did, it's said. Most though, it sounds like they simply… gave up. Laid down on their Hunter's ashes and never got up again. Some suggest it's biological, we simply can't survive solo once we've been practically a symbiote."

"That doesn't frighten you?"

June shrugged. "Everything living dies, Sam. I've already experienced more than I ever dreamed I'd be honored to know. I'm content with that price tag."

"That's a fatalistic outlook."

"I prefer to call it pragmatism," she replied. "Acceptance of reality."

Sam blew out a sigh. Silence stretched dark and heavy in the car. Enough of that.

"What about me, Strongheart? What'll you do if I croak?" Dean risked a glance over his shoulder at her to give her a wicked grin.

She ruffled his hair and squeezed the back of his neck like a hug. "You? I'll cry my eyes out over your body till you start to stink too bad then I'll salt and burn you and throw a huge wake around your funeral pyre and drink till I can't remember my own name for three days after."

"I can live with that," he chuckled. "Or uh, not. You know what I mean."

This time he got a full-on laugh and she pulled Sam into it right along with her.


	8. Chapter 8

Dean watched Sam watch June cross the rest-stop parking lot and disappear into the ladies' room. "There's something else we need to talk about, June-wise."

"What?" Sam let his head thunk against the side window. "We've talked for two hundred miles about her. What's left?"

"Would you look at me, please?"

Sam turned and worked his shoulders into the corner between seat and door.

"Listen, bond or no bond, if she stays around long, we're going to get attached to the little mook. Hell, Sammy, if you accept this nutzo offer, you're going to be chained to her by the hippocampus for life."

"Yes, we've been over that. Minutely."

"Not this part of it. Cas says she has no soul."

"I remember. It's strange and a little sad, but it doesn't bother me."

"But have you thought it through? You know as well as I do that people who hang around us have the life expectancies of fruit flies. When she dies, pfft—snuffed out like a candle. No Ouija board chats, no do-over deals, no angelic rescues, no miracles. Not even a joyful reunion in the sweet by-and-by. You willing to risk super-gluing your brain onto hers, knowing that?"

Sam's eyes slid away, and then back. "I've thought about it. Knowing that she's… nowhere… would be easier to deal with than always wondering where she is, not sure if she's at rest, or if she's being tormented. At least, with her, I'll _know._"

Sam fixed him with an assessing gaze then. "What about you? If I die, she does too. You think you'd be able to handle losing both of us at once?"

"Pfft, you know me Sammy," Dean answered with a wave of a hand. "Grand Master of Dignified Grief Resolution."

Sam greeted that one with a sardonic laugh. "Seriously, Dean. I don't want to do this if it's going to rip you to shreds some day."

"Ah ha, so you've decided to go through with it, huh? You don't have time for a honeymoon on this trip, but I guess I could take a long walk and give you time to knock off a quickie."

There it was, full on bitch-face with extra points for eye ridge glowering. "I'm not going to let you change the subject."

"Give me a break, Sam! Don't we have enough anguish in our lives right here and now without making up some off in the future somewhere?"

"You brought it up, and I'm not going to let you change the subject."

"I wonder how many more times I can get you to repeat yourself?"

"I'm not going to let you change the subject."

"I don't think we have to worry about it, Sam. Vegas money says I'm checking out first. Hell, my liver is considering turning in its resignation as we speak."

"Then put the brakes on the booze. I'm not going to let you change the subject." Amazing how clearly Sam could enunciate with his jaw locked.

"You know what?" Dean dropped his head a little to watch June at the vending machines. "She's got a sweet little ass." He cupped his hands. "Just fits— You grabbed it yet?"

Sam slapped the dash. "Dammit, Dean!"

Dean clucked with a teasing shake of his head. "Throwing in the towel so soon, Sam? You're gettin' soft."

He turned his attention back to June, watching her stuff her pockets with enough candy to croak a Keebler. "Huh. Figured her strictly for a Slim Jims and pork rinds girl."

"Dean, please."

Ok, it was close to not being fun anymore. "Sam. Be happy. Do what you want to do for a change and don't look back. Trust me, if you die, June going out too would be like dropping a pearl into a milk tanker. I won't even notice."

"You sure about that?" Sam asked, his tone a little off.

Dean wondered if Sam was shielding like a sonuvabitch, because June stopped short on the sidewalk and seemed disoriented for a long moment. She hurried back towards the car. He had to make this quick.

"Yes. I'm sure. I'm so friggin' co-dependent that if you die I'm hosed and it doesn't matter who goes along with you. So get yourself a Hound. Heck, take two or three, they're small. Hey June, you gonna share with the class?"

"Everything ok?" she asked as she got into the car, looking from Sam to him with genuine concern.

"Sure, why do you ask?" Sam said with innocence that would make a puppy seem depraved.

"I dunno—you felt all… weird… for a few seconds. Diminished."

Sam opened his mouth and Dean spoke up before his brother could put his foot into it.

"Low blood sugar, probably. He gets so cranky when he's hungry."

"Oh harhar," Sam grumbled.

"See? Told ya."

Sam held his hand out and June dropped a candy bar into it.

Sam's favorite. Dean knew for certain there hadn't been candy of any kind around that cabin since before June showed up. Wasn't an affinity that extended to him, he got dealer's choice. Didn't matter. He didn't taste the first couple of bites any how.


	9. Chapter 9

They were too drugged out on sugar and way too much heavy conversation to say much more over the next two hundred miles or so.

Sam woke up from a nodding nap, yawned and pulled a road map out of the glove box. Dean didn't pay much attention. Sam was either checking out some arcane bit of lore that had popped into his head, or he was figuring their ETA. Whatever, he'd hear about it soon enough. He went back to staving off drowsiness with AC/DC and steering wheel drums.

"Yes, Sam?" June said, pulling her ear buds out and sitting up.

Sam hadn't said a word. Yet, anyway. He folded the map and stuck it back into the glove box. "There's a wildlife management area just west of the highway in about fifteen miles."

"Are we going duck hunting?" Dean drawled.

"No, we're going to see God. Some of us, anyhow."

June made a weepy sounding happy noise from the back seat. He felt more like screaming.

"You're going through with this?"

Sam simply nodded, his face set.

"You've got only about fifty-five hours until the pixie-dust wears off and you can get sole occupancy of your brain back, Sam. Why not wait and think this through when you're not under the influence?"

"But—" June burst out, sounding even more sniffly.

"Nobody's askin' for your input, JoJo!" He twisted around just long enough to stab a finger and a 'this close to popping a cap in your ass' scowl at her.

"JoJo was human, and a guy, dumbass," she muttered, quelled into the corner of the back seat behind Sam.

"Bite me, Fifi."

"Don't tempt me, long-pig."

"Both of you stow it!" Sam snapped. "Dean, less than three hours ago you were telling me to do what I want to do and be happy, and now you're fighting me on this again?"

"I'm not fighting you."

Sam's face said it all.

"I'm not. What I'm sayin' is that you can't get _married_ when you're under the influence. And if you manage it anyhow, you can get a divorce easy enough to fix that screw-up even if you staggered to the altar in the sleaziest chapel in Vegas. Sam, I'm not thrilled you're all wired up to Ribsy back there, but I'm not even talkin' about that. She ain't the only mind-altering substance bouncing around your brain right now. Your hard drive's spinnin' with a few bad sectors. All I'm sayin' is to give yourself a little time for sober—ice cold, level-headed sober—reflection on this. You can't undo it, so don't go fallin' face first into it, ok? I'm asking you to wait, that's all."

"I'm sober," Sam answered, his voice even. "She's helping me stay sober. I know exactly what I'm getting myself into here."

Great. Creepy Calm Sam was back in the house. "How? How can you possibly know that? _She_ doesn't know that!"

"I know enough to be certain I don't want to give up what I have right now. There's no guarantee I can get it back if we let the time limit run out."

"That true, Barfy?"

"I don't know, but I think so," June said, but she kept her eyes on Sam.

"You're a fount of useful information, June." His hands were so tight on the wheel his knuckles throbbed. "You know what this sounds like to me?"

"No, but I'm sure you'll tell me," Sam said.

"It sounds like you're trading one addiction for another, and this one you won't be able to shake."

Sam blurted a short, mocking laugh. "Least of my worries, Dean. If this bonding is an addiction, it beats the crap out of all the alternatives. I'm doing this." He reached back towards June as she reached for him. "Even if we have to do it right here in the car."

Dean knocked Sam's hand aside before they made contact and jerked the car to the side of the road in a sliding stop. He studied his brother's face and beneath that artificial calm he saw an all-too- familiar 'No compromise. Agree or I walk' stoniness.

Damn it. Damn this bonding shit straight to Hell and his little dog too…. A horrific image flashed through his mind and he flinched. No, he couldn't wish that even on June.

He covered the gag with a grunt. "When you wake up someday with a roaring case of roundworms and five or six foul-mouthed brats with waggly tails and wet noses, don't come crying to me. Where's this park or whatever?"

**-oOo-**

A fine misty rain settled in after they got back on the road, so when they pulled into the park, they had the place to themselves. June sniffed them off the official trail and deep into the forested section.

Dean sat on a mossy log. Sam and June sat on the ground a few feet away, their legs entwined so Ginormo and Teeny were within comfortable touching distance. They were doing their best to ignore him, he could tell. They could suck it up. He wasn't about to let this go down without being a witness. Just in case.

"What do we do now?" Sam asked her.

"I think we just touch and—will it to happen."

"Give up your oneness, go with the flow, get it awwwnnn…."

"The peanut gallery is kinda right," June admitted with a lilting throb in her voice that didn't lighten Sam's sour expression. "We're never going to be all and only Sam or June again, not really. I have a feeling it's not going to be so easy to release that hold on self."

"It could be an altered state like deep meditation."

"Could be a frontal lobotomy," Dean muttered.

Sam reached out to lay his fingers along June's temples, and closed his eyes.

"Dude! That is so Mr. Spock!"

Sam dropped his hands and looked over. "You're drunk."

"Workin' on it."

"Could you make the effort to do it quietly?" Sam asked, although his calm tone this time had that tight-ass edge to it he'd known so well for so long.

"Consider it a wedding present, Sammy." He saluted them with his flask.

"Thank you!" Sam snapped.

"Mazel tov."

Sam turned back to June and Dean had to bite his tongue when Sam laid his hands on her shoulders this time, fingertips along her throat. She slid her hands under his shirt collar. They closed their eyes. The tension trickled out of both their bodies.

The only sound was the intermittent gurgling of his flask and the scolding of a disapproving jaybird.

And …. nothing happened. At all. After ten minutes, Dean shifted with a grimace. The dampness from the moss had made its way through his jeans and right past his shorts. After twenty minutes, he capped his flask and stood up with a belch. "Well, this has been a complete waste of-"

The simultaneous shout startled the flask out of his grip and the jay out of the tree. After a heart-pounding second he realized they hadn't reacted to him. Whatever was going on for them was not on his plane of awareness.

He squatted behind June to look into Sam's face. Sam's eyes were spread wide, pupils down to tiny pinpricks. If he was seeing anything, it was in his own head because he had to be blind. Scary as that was, it was his brother's face that stopped him from jerking the two apart. He'd never seen that expression on Sam's face before.

Joy. Pure, glowing, undiluted joy.

Then the other noises started and he realized he was the only one at this party not hitting the good stuff. He was too worried for Sam to go back to that log or even turn his back, but _damn_…. Not a part of Sam's expressive repertoire he'd ever wanted to be exposed to.

"I feel so dirty," he muttered, but neither of them gave the slightest indication of hearing him. He somewhat eased the situation by keeping them in sight out of the corner of his eyes and Casa Erotica in front of his mind's eye. The soundtrack was pretty much the same, minus the cheesy house music.

When silence fell once more, he dared turn back to them. They'd dropped their heads, breathing hard, gasping in exact synchrony. Even the pulses bounding visible in their throats were on the same precise beat. The only things not in lockstep were the beads of sweat rolling off both of them and the rain water dripping off the ends of their hair.

"Sam?"

"Sam!" Not a flicker of reaction. He grabbed Sam's shoulders. It was like grabbing hold of lightning. Sam, June, the whole world disappeared in a blast of colors he had no names for and his own raw shout was a whisper lost beneath exquisite pealing, chiming, ringing sounds that were like nothing struck on earth. Every positive emotion he could name and a whole lot he could only feel flooded him till he could scarcely breathe. When he swallowed, he swallowed piercing sweetness.

It was too much.

The next thing he felt was rain on his face and the chill, ugly wetness of it made him want to sob. He kept it to a groan.

"Dean?"

He opened his eyes. Wasn't heaven he saw hanging over him, but he'd settle for it.

"I understand blue, Sammy."

"What?" Sam looked as shell-shocked as he felt.

Dean lifted his head, grabbed Sam's wrist. "I understand blue."

Sam's eyes went wide all over again.

June gasped at the same instant and laid her hand on his chest. "I don't feel anything," she blurted.

Dean dropped his head back against the wet earth and he almost sobbed again. "Thank God for that!"

Two sets of hands latched on and helped haul him back up onto his feet. "I think this qualifies as a side-effect, Wonder Dog."

"No, I'm pretty certain this falls under things that can go horribly, horribly wrong," Sam said. "What did you _do_?"

"I just touched you, man!" he burst out, shaking off Sam's supportive hold. "You were unresponsive and hyperventilating and your heart was beating at least two-ten and I was afraid you were gonna stroke out on me!"

"Dean. Breathe," Sam urged, reaching out.

The instant Sam's fingers closed around his arm, he got a blast of tangled emotions again that didn't feel like his.

_Concernsympathyanxiety._

Too late, he realized that fearful, feral whine he heard had come from his own throat.

Sam's arms went around him and it was better and it was a whole lot worse. "Shh, Dean. Hey, it's gonna be ok."

Sam's whispered breath flickered against his ear but it was the wave of love and reassurance backwashing into his brain that he felt first.

"How's this gonna be any kind of ok? I can barely handle what _I_ feel most of the time…." His voice came out tight, and thickened and higher-pitched and he screwed his eyes tight to keep from bursting into to tears like some little bitch.

Like the one who pressed up against his back and wrapped her arms around him and Sam both. All the nastiest stuff suddenly slid out of him like sand out of a torn sack. Out his back. "Not helping, June."

"Liar," Sam chuckled softly, along with a side order of indulgent affection spiked with well-worn frustration.

He dropped his forehead against Sam's shoulder. "I am so screwed."

**-oOo-**

During the hike back to the car, they poked at their new connections. After some experiments and one of the freakiest games of hide-and-seek ever played on the planet, they determined that the three of them now had their very own private GPS. They could walk right to each other. It was strongest between him and Sam. He was as certain of Sam's location as he was his own nose. With June, it was weaker, and felt like some internal game of 'hotter, colder' but he could find her just as unerringly, only took a little longer.

It was the same for Sam, except he could instantly pinpoint June too, and June had no problem sussing either of them out just as quickly as Sam, though he suspected she was cheating some with that drug-dog nose of hers.

All the time now there was a low-level background hum in his mind, nothing distracting, thank god, but always there like a faint ringing in the ears. When he paid attention to it, he realized with a jolt that it was chatter from Sam's nervous system. It truly was like having a new body part, totally integrated. When he and Sam touched, he got fully-loaded emotional input too, though Sam said what he felt on his side was more like a sliding emotional-physical scale reading from worst-case awful to… well, what he'd felt before he passed out back there in that clearing.

When just he and June touched, there was nothing at all. When all three of them touched, it was the full-on Heinlein Experience for all of them. After that experiment, he was determined that group hugs weren't going to happen again. Ever, if he could avoid it.

"Keys," Sam demanded when they got back to the car.

"I'm good to drive."

Sam's hand snaked out and closed hard around his bicep. He held his other hand out, an implacable set to his jaw.

"This blows," Dean groaned and admitted defeat by dropping his keys into Sam's palm.

As soon as Sam turned the key in the ignition, Angus Young's rippling lead guitar work poured out of the speakers. _'You've been THUNDERSTRUCK!'_ Johnson squalled at them.

All three of them stared at the tape player for a shocked, synchronized beat, and burst out laughing. As Sam pulled out, Dean reached over and cranked the volume until the windows shook.

Sam pushed Baby to the red-line, to make up lost time. Dean pulled his sunglasses out of the glove box, bunched his jacket up against the door and tried to get some sleep.

**-oOo-**

It was a perfect day, and the perfect time of day. Not too chilly, not too hot. Just enough cloud cover to keep the sunlight on the ripples from being blinding. Perfect. Except, well, he hadn't yet got a bite. Sometimes, that wasn't the point, even though it was called fishing. Dean flicked his line out, the faint zing of the reel the only sound besides the lapping of the breeze-driven ripples against the pilings of the pier.

There was the sensation of another presence. A shadow fell across him. Cas was standing beside him, hands in his coat pockets, gazing out over the lake.

"We need to talk," he said.

"I'm dreaming, aren't I?"

"It's not safe here. Someplace more private."

Dean looked up at him, squinting against the sun. "More private? We're inside my _head_."

"Exactly. Someone could be listening."

Dean laid his rod down with that sick sensation of a pleasant dream morphing into a nightmare. "Cas, what's wrong?"

"Go now." Cas held out a folded scrap of paper, his placid face urgent.

Dean reached out for the note but the breeze became a gust and snatched it away. It fluttered out over the water. An enormous bass broke the surface, its iridescent green-striped side flashing in the sunlight. The fish swallowed the note like a mayfly and vanished back into the lake.

The shadow that had fallen across him was gone. He was alone on the pier.

Dean jerked all over, his head knocking against the side window.

"You ok?" Sam asked.

Dean sat up and lifted his sunglasses to rub his eyes. "Man, I just had the most weird-ass dream."

Sam grinned. "Clowns or midgets?"

"Fish. Really, _really_ big fish."

"Say no more. Please."

Dean flicked him a grin. "Any coffee left?"

"Maybe."

June sat up in back and yawned. "Are we there yet?"

Dean turned in the seat and pointed the thermos at her like a scolding finger. "That's your one shot per trip with that question, Buttons. Fair warning."

"Gah, what crawled up your butt while you were asleep?"

"Apparently a really big fish," Sam broke in with another grin. "We're about five hours out."

**-oOo-**

Nobody talked much after that, but this time the silence didn't hang heavy and dark. Even though it was the middle of the night, it felt like the car was full of spring sunlight.

Right before they hit the South Dakota line, Dean realized that what he was feeling was happy contentment. It had been so long, it had taken that long to put a name to it. Despite everything in their life that hadn't changed. Despite the looming cataclysm and the weight of responsibility and guilt that still sat crushing across his shoulders—right here, right now, he was bone-deep happy.

He didn't have to touch Sam to know his brother was feeling much the same way. Just looking at his face, more relaxed than he'd seen it in years when Sam was awake, told him he was right.

Maybe the bleeding hearts were right. Adopting a dog was good for you.

He looked into the rearview. June glanced up, met his eyes. She stuck her tongue out at him, then grinned.

Nah.


	10. Chapter 10

_**7:15 AM**_

"Wait in the car," Sam told her as they stopped in front of the house.

"But Sam!" She flung open her door.

"He said wait in the car so you wait in the car, mutt," Dean seconded as he opened his door and got out.

"Fu-!"

Sam turned and she snapped her mouth shut on the profanity. "June, please. Bobby needs to talk to us, and he'll be pissed if we surprise him with you. He's lived this life long enough to be extremely cautious."

"He's paranoid, you mean."

"It's not paranoia when the monsters are really after you, Toto," Dean muttered.

"Yes, he is," Sam answered over the top of him. "He's also the only family we have left. We'll be fine. Just wait here in the car till I come get you."

She stuck her bottom lip out, but she slammed her door closed. Sam got out and walked up to the porch.

"You think she'll stay in there?" Dean asked.

Sam shot a glance over his shoulder. "She'll stay. We'll probably have to listen to her bitch about it for a month, but she'll stay."

"Hope you're right, Cesar," Dean scoffed. "Cause if she comes chargin' in..."

"We're out one dog," Sam finished. He knocked on the door.

After the clicking of multiple locks, Bobby opened it. "Hey boys. Thanks for shaking a tail."

"Yeah, you got it," Dean said.

"What have you found out?" Sam asked, leading the way inside.

"It's a big demon problem. Real big. Go on downstairs." Bobby jerked his head towards the back of the house and Sam led the way through.

Bobby stepped in front of him to open the door to the panic room. "Go on inside. I wanna show you something."

Sam walked inside, almost to the middle, before he stopped and glanced around the circular room. "All right. So, uh, what's the big demon problem?"

"You are," Bobby said. "This is for your own good."

Sam spun around, shock on his face. Dean stepped back as Bobby slammed the door and locked it before Sam could take more than two strides towards them.

Sam looked out at them through the barred window, confused and uneasy. "Guys? Hey- hey. What?"

Bobby calmly closed and locked the window.

Sam's strained voice made it through the iron. "This isn't funny. Guys! Hey! Guys?"

Bobby turned and walked away. Dean couldn't make himself follow. Not yet.

"Okay. Let me out. This is not funny." Sam's voice was tight, but calm.

"Damn straight." He opened the window.

Confused hazel eyes stared back. "Dean, come on. This is crazy."

"No. Not until you dry out."

"What? I thought we settled this already. Look, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have lied to you. I get that now, trust me. Just open the door."

"You don't have to apologize. It's not your fault. It's not your fault that you lied to me over and over again. I get it now. You couldn't help it. You are powerless against your addiction," he chanted. "Your life has become unmanageable—"

Sam scoffed. "I'm not some junkie."

"Really? I guess I've just imagined how strung out you've been lately."

Sam's eyes widened, then narrowed. "You're actually trying to twist this into some kind of ridiculous drug intervention?"

Dean shrugged. "If it smells like a duck."

A fist impacted against the iron. Sounded like it probably hurt.

"Dean! Damn it, we worked all this out yesterday! Killing Lilith is all that matters, and I can't do that locked in a damn panic room! Or are you so busy being self-righteous you forgot about her?"

"Oh, Lilith's gonna die. Bobby and I will kill her. But not with you."

"You're not serious."

"Congrats, Sammy. You just bought yourself a benchwarmer seat to the Apocalypse." He reached up to the window shutter.

Panic widened Sam's eyes again. "Dean, look—no, wait—"

Dean closed the shutter and turned his back.

"Come back here. Dean!"

He flinched at the sound of flesh against iron again and made himself climb those basement stairs.

"Let me out of here!" Anger.

"Dean! Let me out of here! Let me out!" Fury.

"Dean!" Disbelief.

"JUUUNE!" Desperation.

Dean closed the basement door on it, but the echo seemed to linger. Higher pitched. More frantic.

"SAAAM!"

"Oh shit!" He charged through the house, hearing June's footsteps pounding across the floor, a wordless shout from Bobby. He rounded the living room door to see Bobby blast June with a sawed-off, point-blank.

"Ohgodohgod!" He skidded to his knees beside her, turned her over.

Her eyes were rolled up into her head and blood welled up from at least a couple dozen pellet wounds across her chest.

"She prob'ly ain't dead," Bobby grunted, and jacked another shell into the ten-gauge. "Rock salt."

"Rock salt?" Dean blurted.

"Thought some of Sam's new friends might come kick up a fuss. You know this little idjit?"

Before he could answer, June let out a long, low whine and stirred in his arms.

"You were supposed to stay in the car until we came and got you, you stupid mutt!" Dean bellowed into her confused face.

She writhed against his grip and he might as well have been trying to hold onto a greased bull.

June scrabbled to her feet and jerked him up onto his by the collar of his jacket. "Sam, Dean! He's in trouble!"

"He's ok, June!" Dean made a grab for her and caught the end of her ponytail as she made a break towards the basement.

The shotgun blast right over their heads froze them both in their tracks.

"You wanna clue me in, boy?"

"What have you done to Sam?" June demanded, and twisted towards Bobby with vicious intent.

Dean yanked her down to the floor hair first. "SIT, Ubu. And _don't_ speak."

He looked up at Bobby's cocked eyebrow and cocked shotgun. "June, this is Bobby Singer. Bobby, this rabid specimen is June Reed. Sam's new pet."

"Excuse me?" Bobby's eyebrow stayed cocked, but at least the shotgun lowered.

June rose to her feet, leaving Dean with a handful of hair. He shook it off his fingers as she pulled herself to full imperious height and addressed Bobby like the frickin' Queen of Everything.

"I am Canis Major of the Canes Caelorum. Why have you locked up my Hunter, Mr. Singer?"

"Canes Caelorum? Ain't you supposed to be _extinct_?"

"The rumors of our demise, yada yada WHY THE FUCK IS SAM LOCKED UP?"

"You didn't tell her?"

"Would you have?"

Bobby shrugged. "Cain't make any difference now."

Dean put his hands on June's shoulders. She tolerated it this time. "June, sweetheart, he's ok."

"No, he's not. He's wiggin' right the hell out down there, and you know it!"

"Exactly. June, he's sworn the stuff off before. Shit, two or three times now, and he always goes back to it when he gets the shakes. He's got to go into lockdown, June. It's the only thing left. The only way we make sure he comes clean."

"But he can't be alone, Dean! It's not safe! He's wide open for—"

"He's safe," Bobby interjected. "Nothin's gonna get to him down there, girl. Go on, take her down and show her. That's all that will convince her."

"Please, Dean! I have to see him!"

"Feeling him's not enough?"

"No!" she burst out, the syllable almost sounding like a sob. "No, it's worse! Please!"

Fat tears were standing in her eyes, and there was no doubt this time they were genuine. "Come on then," he said and led the way to the basement.

"June?" Bobby said as he followed behind.

"Yes?" She didn't look back at him.

"If you open that door, I'll shoot ya. And it won't be with salt this time."

She nodded. They got half-way down the basement stairs before she spun and sprinted back up, ducking Bobby on the narrow treads like she'd passed right through him.

"What the?" Bobby grunted and they both went after her. She was clutching onto the door facing and was a really nasty shade of gray-white. Dean reached out to touch her, thankful all over again they didn't grok.

"Lock me up!" she pleaded. "Lock me up! LockmeuplockmeupLOCK ME UP!"

He settled for grabbing her and shaking till her eyes rolled like a doll's. "JUNE! Focus! What's going on?"

"He's trying to force me to let him out! He's pulling at me—clawing at me! Dean, lock me up! I can't fight him off for long!"

His hold turned to one that would rip her arm out of its socket if she struggled. She didn't; in fact, she flashed him a look of desperate gratitude.

"Can he do that?" Bobby asked him.

"Oh hell yeah. Our little Sammy, Master of Puppets. Well, Puppet."

"How strong are you, gal?"

June didn't respond, staring down the basement stairs, panting. She was getting slippery with sweat. He wouldn't be able to hang on long if she bolted.

"I'm pretty sure she could bench a Buick if she had to."

"Come on." Bobby let the way out of the house and into the salvage yard. Dean followed close, alternating between supporting June when her knees sagged and dragging her when she couldn't fight off at least a token amount of resistance.

Bobby detoured just long enough at one of the sheds to wrap himself in enough locks and chain to look like Jacob friggin' Marley. He carried a wicked-looking pronged choke collar and a heavy-duty dog harness in his hand. "Over there."

He pointed to where a derelict bulldozer squatted on rotted flat tires, its paint more rust than yellow.

June shook and panted and sweated and puked and Bobby ducked a few haymakers, but between the two of them they managed the deed.

Her shrieks followed them back to the house. Sam's muffled screams met them inside.


	11. Chapter 11

_**4:57 PM**_

"Stop! _Stop!_"

Dean winced at the frantic terror in Sam's scream. He couldn't see the torments Sam's mind was serving up, but he could feel the sensory effects blasting along his nervous system any time he dropped his guard. The repertoire of torture coming out of the depths of Sam's head stunned and scared him. Bad as it was for him to share in Sam's DTs, he was pretty sure it was worse for June by some power of ten. Couldn't decide if that made him feel worse or better, though.

He glanced over at the tumbler of whiskey on Bobby's desk. God, how he wanted a drink… "How long is this gonna go on?"

"Here, let me look it up in my demon-detox manual." Bobby's hand feinted towards the pile of books on the desk top. "Oh wait. No one ever wrote one. No telling how long it'll take. Hell, or if Sam will even live through it."

The phone rang. Bobby picked it up, irritation on his face. "Hello? Suck dirt and die, Rufus. You call me again, I'll kill ya."

Whoa. That was harsh. "What's up with Rufus?"

"He knows."

The phone rang again and Bobby snatched it up like he was throttling it. "I'm busy, you sonuvabitch. This better be important."

The conversation was sparse on Bobby's end, all uh-huhs and grunts. At least Sam had quieted down. Still stressed major, no surprise there, but at least not enduring the phantom sensation of his guts being pulled out of his navel again or anything.

As Bobby's call wound down, the fax machine started whirring, spitting out a few pages.

"So what was Rufus so anxious to tell you?"

"The news, and the news ain't good." Bobby jerked his head towards the fax machine.

Dean picked them up and propped a hip on the corner of the desk. "This is what Rufus called about? 'Key West sees ten species go extinct'."

"Yep. Plus Alaska. Fifteen-man fishing crew all stricken blind, cause unknown. New York, teacher goes postal, locks the door, kills exactly sixty-six kids. All this in a single day."

Dean grimaced at that one. The other two could have been random events, but sixty-six helpless little kids? He glanced over his shoulder at Bobby.

"He looked them up," Bobby said, confirming his dread. "There's no doubt about it. They're all seals. Breaking. Fast."

Dean rose and turned to face him. "How many are left?"

"Who knows? Can't be many. Where the hell are your angel pals?"

"You tell me." Dean tossed the sheets onto the desk and turned to go check on Sam.

"I'm just wondering.

"What?" Dean turned back in the doorway.

Bobby scratched at his cheek. "The apocalypse being nigh and all...is now really the best time to be having this little domestic drama of ours?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I don't like this any more than you do, but Sam can kill demons. He's got a shot at stopping Armageddon."

Dean's shoulders tightened, and he moved closer to Bobby. Fighting close. "So what? Sacrifice Sam's life, his soul, for the greater good? Is that what you're saying? Times are bad, so let's use Sam as a nuclear warhead?"

"Look, I know you hate me for suggesting it. _I_ hate me for suggesting it. I love that boy like a son."

Angry and disgusted as he was, Dean could see what it was costing Bobby to say this.

Bobby shook his head. "All I'm saying is maybe he's here right now instead of on the battlefield because we love him too much."

There was nothing for him to say to that. When he couldn't stand the look in Bobby's eyes any longer, he turned and left the room. Bobby didn't try to stop him.

_**7:10 PM**_

Dean ducked into the shadow under the faded tarp. "How're you doin', kiddo?"

June looked like shit, slumped with her head hanging till all he could see was a dull, tangled red mess of hair on of Bobby's ragged blankets. She lifted her head. Scratch that, she looked like baked shit. Extra crunchy.

"I'm squattin' in a junkyard chained to the carcass of a dead bulldozer and the center of my universe is in four-point restraints havin' a full-blown psychotic break inside a decommissioned boiler. Just how the hell do you think I'm doin', Dean?"

"That good, huh?"

She snorted and he handed her one of the bottles he carried.

"Thanks." She took a long swig and frowned when he drew on his. "Why are you tremoring?"

"Because this is Barq's, not bourbon."

Her eyebrows curved up.

He raised a trembling hand. "Hello, my name's Dean Winchester and I'm an alcoholic. Figured Sam's kickin' his bad habit to the curb, it's time to get a handle on mine too. Game's too big now for either of us to hit the field juiced."

"Geez, sugar… I hadn't realized it's gone that far with you."

"Been drinkin' since I was about fifteen."

She set her bottle aside. "That's a long time to be in so much pain that you're driven to self-sedate every day."

He didn't need the bond to know for certain there was nothing in her words but compassion. "Yeah, well, it's only been the last year or so that I've been hittin' it hard."

"You can detox, but that doesn't fix the reason you tox'd in the first place," June said. "What're you going to use to replace the booze?"

"I'm thinkin' sex," he answered, and forced himself to give her an evil grin. She had enough on her without worrying over him, and he had enough on him without adding amateur talk therapy to the pile.

She couldn't quite manage a smile, but settled for a thoughtful nod. "That could work. Both are coping mechanisms and sex would be healthier for you if you show some sense about it."

"You volunteering, Hush Puppy?"

"Oh yeah." Every ounce of her weariness was in her voice again. "Do me, baby. Do me now."

"I'll take a rain-check till you've had a shower."

"Like _you_ smell s-" June flung herself against her chains, her spine bowing to the snapping point, the breath slamming out of her in a guttural croak.

He yelled, every nerve sizzling like he'd been dipped in napalm and fire ants. It couldn't have been more than a few seconds but it felt like a week before the torment faded. He couldn't say he'd gotten used to it, but at least it didn't make him nearly piss himself now.

June sprawled like a rag doll, out cold. As fast as he could, he made sure the choke collar was loose and rearranged her so she wasn't lying on her chains, then ran back to the house to check on Sam.

**2:32 AM, Second Day**

Dean paced in front of the parts shed. He'd wandered the whole yard, but kept ending up here. It was as far from June's screams and howls as he could get, and equally as far from the house—as if distance made any difference at all there.

Ok, enough. Why had he even let himself hope?

There was the rustle of massive wings behind him.

"Well, it's about time. I've been screaming myself hoarse out here for about two and a half hours now." Any longer, and he'd had no voice left at all.

When he heard the crunch of footsteps, he turned towards Cas.

"What do you want?" Cas asked.

"You can start with what the hell that little Kruegeresqe dream-visit was all about."

Cas came closer, hands in his coat pockets. "What do you mean?"

"Cut the crap. You were gonna tell me something."

Cas glanced towards the house, as if he could hear the screams Dean felt. "Well, it was nothing of import."

"You pulled a B-and-E on my brain, but it was 'nothing of import'?"

Cas gave him a sidelong look. "Dean, I can't." He glanced around as if he suspected he was tailed, his brows pulled together. He stepped away, towards the house. "I'm sorry. Get to the reason you really called me. It's about Sam, right?"

Dean didn't follow him. "Can he do it? Kill Lilith, stop the Apocalypse?"

"Possibly, yes." Cas turned back towards him, faint unease around his eyes. "But as you know, he'd have to take certain steps."

"Crank up the hell-blood regimen." Unease didn't begin it for him.

"If Sam should choose that path, consuming the amount of blood it would take to kill Lilith would change your brother forever. Most likely, he would become the next creature that you would feel compelled to kill."

The words, spoken in that flat, even tone, made him blink.

"There's no reason this would have to come to pass, Dean." Cas stepped closer. "We believe it's you, Dean, not your brother. The only question for us is whether you're willing to accept it." Cas's voice hardened into a command. "Stand up and accept your role. You are the one who will stop it."

"If I do this, Sammy doesn't have to?" Dean challenged.

Cas cocked his head. "If it gives you comfort to see it that way."

At the tone the time will be… "You're a dick, you know that? Thanks for the dog, by the way. Big help there."

Cas looked through him, silent.

Dean turned, walked back towards the house. Before he got to the end of the shed, he stopped, resignation flooding him. He sighed. "Fine. I'm in."

"Do you give yourself over _wholly_ to the service of God and his angels?" Cas intoned behind him.

"Yeah, exactly."

"Say it," Cas demanded.

Dean half-turned to find Cas looking at him, a strange, almost apologetic expression in his eyes. Dean stalked closer, to stand in front of Cas and as he spoke, he was serious. "I give myself over wholly to serve God…" His reverent tone faded into faint scorn. "… and you guys."

Must have been good enough, because Cas's gaze turned intense, commanding. "You swear to follow His will and His word as swiftly and obediently as you did your own father's?"

Dean's jaw tightened and he drew his shoulders back and gave Cas a challenging stare of his own. "Yes. I swear. Now what?"

Cas's voice took on a harsh edge. "Now you wait, and we call on you when it's time."

Their staring contest ended when Dean found himself suddenly staring at nothing.


	12. Chapter 12

_**8:47 PM,**_ _**Second Day**_

"Bobby! Dean! June! Help! Hey! _Hey!_ Guys! _Guys!_ Help! June! _June?_ _DEAN!_"

Dean shuddered and couldn't help but scratch at the phantom lines of painful pressure spreading across his neck and face. He resisted the urge to run look in the mirror. This was Sam's hallucination, not his.

Bobby didn't so much as glance towards the kitchen. He scowled at Dean, arms crossed over his chest, radiating disgusted irritation. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but you willingly signed up to be the angels' bitch?"

Dean didn't dignify that with a come-back.

Bobby gave him an exaggerated shrug and nod. "I'm sorry. You prefer 'sucker'? After everything you said about 'em, now you trust them?"

"Come on, give me a little credit, Bobby," Dean snapped. "I've never trusted them less. I mean, they come on like shady politicians from planet Vulcan."

"Then why in the hell—?"

"Because what other option do I have?" Dean felt his temper slipping its chain. "It's either trust the angels or let Sammy trust a demon?"

Bobby nodded, his expression softening. "I see your point."

He sat down into his desk chair and Dean sat on the couch. He dropped his head into his hands and dragged his shaking fingers through his hair. He was so damned tired. Sam was so damned tired…. He didn't burn the energy to lift his head when Bobby spoke again.

"I'm gonna ask one more time. Are we absolutely sure we're doing the right thing?"

Dean stood up. Bobby was standing behind his desk now, his hands braced on top. "Bobby, you saw what was happening to him down there. The demon blood is killing him."

"No, it isn't. _We_ are."

"What?"

Bobby shook his head and his voice came out rushed, worried. "I'm sorry. I can't bite my tongue any longer. We're killing him. Keeping him locked up down there. This cold-turkey thing isn't working. If—if he doesn't get what he needs, _soon_, Sam's not gonna last much longer."

Dean swallowed hard, and shook his head. "No." He had to swallow again. "I'm not giving him demon blood. I won't do it."

"And if he dies?" Bobby challenged, almost in a whisper.

"Then at least he dies human!" Dean burst out, as his vision blurred. He had to fight to keep his voice from breaking. "I would die for him in a second, but I won't let him do this to himself. I can't. I guess I found my line. I won't let my brother turn into a monster."

_**2:18 AM, Morning of Fourth Day**_

Castiel materialized several yards away. Even so, June's head lifted and she drew herself up to her knees, her motions slow and stiffened.

"Castiel? Have you come to heal Sam?" she asked as he drew nearer, the strain of weariness and fading hope in her voice.

"No. I am sorry. But I have come to end his torment." At her gasp, he amended, "By releasing you both."

She gave a broken little sob, then reached out towards him, the chains clanking, dragging heavily as she moved. "Thank you! Thank the Father!"

"There is much you must know to save him, little one," he told her. "And you must hold fast to what you know now. Do not allow your faith to be shaken, nor your devotion."

He reached out with two fingers, to lightly touch her forehead. June gasped and closed her eyes. The chains, the collar, the harness; they all dropped to the ground around her, still padlocked and buckled.

"Rise up, Hound," Castiel commanded, and offered his hand. She laid her hand on his and stood.

His touch turned to a supportive hold when she staggered, instantly in front of the panic room door. "Fulfill your destiny, Hound," Castiel urged her in a low voice. "Serve your Hunter as you serve the Father."

She found herself nodding to thin air. The sharp clicks of opening locks filtered through the metal. She rushed to the boiler, slid the bolt back and opened the heavy iron door.

"June?" Sam sat up on the cot, looking from her to his opened restraints with confusion on his face. "Are you… real?"

She bit her lip and nodded. "Yes, honey. Can you walk? We have to hurry!"

"Yeah. Yeah I think so." He got up with a groan and hurried to the door. June put her arm around him in both embrace and support, and they made their way up the basement stairs.

Unnoticed behind the open staircase, Castiel watched their escape. When the basement door closed, he stepped out and looked towards the open panic room with a subtle flick of two fingers.

The heavy iron door swung shut in utter silence, and the bolt slid home of its own volition. He walked upstairs, past the sleeping men, and touched a keypad hidden under the top of Bobby Singer's desk to disable the security system for a few moments. It was all he was allowed to do. And all he dared to do.

Castiel vanished, and neither man stirred at the noise of an engine sputtering to life outside.


	13. Chapter 13

Dean sat up, rubbed his eyes and listened, internally and externally. Way too much nothing from way too far off. He jolted to his feet and rushed downstairs. The door to the panic room was undisturbed, but he wasn't surprised when he swung it open to find an empty cot and unlocked restraints.

"BOBBY!"

Bobby clattered downstairs, boots loud on the stairs. He stopped short just outside the panic room door, shock on his face.

"How the hell did he get out?" Dean slapped one of the chains off the bed to clatter against the floor.

"Maybe he had help." Bobby walked inside, looking around for a moment as if Sam was lurking somewhere. "Wasn't his pet demon, that's for sure. None of the traps are busted."

"June." The word came out of Dean's mouth from between clenched teeth.

"That'd be my guess. You think she's got that kind of mojo?

Dean paced, fists tight. "I didn't think so. I don't know, man."

"One sure way to find out—"

**-oOo-**

Dean dropped the padlocked chain attached to the buckled harness. One that had fit so tightly it had almost cut into her. "How the hell did _she_ get loose?"

Bobby kicked the collar aside. "What difference does it make? How they got gone ain't as important as where they got gone to."

"Well, I'll tell you one thing. At this point I hope he's with Ruby too."

That one made Bobby take a step back. "Why?"

"'Cause killing her and June is number one and number two on my to-do list and we don't have much time before the curtain drops."

"I thought you were on call for angel duty."

Dean headed off back towards the house at an angry pace. "I am on call. In my car, on my way to murder both of those bitches."

"One thing," Bobby said behind him.

Dean stopped, but didn't turn around. "What?" he snapped.

"Sam don't wanna be found, which means he's gonna be damn near impossible to find," Bobby called out.

Dean's lip twisted in a bitter smirk. "Yeah, we'll see."

**-oOo-**

_**Cold Spring, MN**_

Sam watched June turn into the stiff breeze and lift her head. Her nostrils flared and a low rumbling growl rolled out of her chest. It went on and on, as if she were pushing the sound out with circular breathing.

"So I take it the signs were right?"

She turned and nodded, her face tight and hard, her eyes shadowed and sunken. "The whole town's infested."

"Good. Then this shouldn't take long." A small, ugly smile slid across Sam's gaunt face. "Sic 'em, girl!"

June pulled her dress off over her head and before it floated to the ground, she was surging away on all fours, her body flexing and extending like a racing greyhound.

Sam got back in the car and followed at a prudent distance. He had to take a round-about route at times, as she passed through alley-ways and back yards where he couldn't follow.

She cornered her beer-bellied prey up against a stinking dumpster behind a bar and grill. The thumping music inside drowned out the sound of their battle as he yelled profanities at her and she dodged flying debris and bit chunks out where ever she got an opportunity.

Sam slewed the car to face the alleyway trunk first and got out. He sidestepped the sliding dumpster. "Good girl, June."

The demon pulled against June's grip on his arm as she savagely tried to shake it free of its socket. He screamed with human terror and pain and looked towards Sam with genuine desperation. "Call off your dog, man! Please! Call off your dog!"

"I don't think so," Sam said, almost gently, and held up his hand.

The demon's eyes went black and almost bugged out of his head. He started choking, but it was frothy saliva that poured out of his mouth, not smoke. His eyes went back to blood-shot brown and rolled up into his head. He dropped with a solid thud.

"Did you have to pick one so damn heavy?" Sam said as he squatted to grab the man's ankles and stood back up with a grunt.

June lifted the demon's torso from under his arms as if he were not much heavier than a child. "Hey, he's too fat to run very fast. I'm tired."

They dumped him into the trunk and peeled off to find somewhere more private.

**-oOo-**

The demon's head was hanging, chin to his chest, his body tied painfully tight to a chair. He swallowed and groaned, his head swinging to follow the lines of the devil's trap drawn around him. "Oh shit. This is not good."

"Listen to that, June. We've captured His Satanic Majesty's Master of Understatement," Sam sneered, and jerked the man's head up by his lank, greasy hair and shook him so hard vertebras crackled. "I'm pretty good at understatement myself. Like, for instance, your immediate future is looking extremely grim unless you tell me where to find Lilith."

"_Lilith?_" The demon laughed. "You're makin' a real bad joke, asshole or you're the stupidest motherhumper ever t' draw a trap! I ain't never seen the bitch. I ain't never seen no one who's seen someone who's seen the bitch. Go ahead, chant yer fuckin' Latin or give me a holy water enema. I'm just a bottom-rung go-fer but I ain't afraid of you. You send me back and I'm a-ok, cuz I cain't tell what I don't know!"

Sam's punch sent a bloodied molar skipping across the room.

The demon spit a mouthful of blood towards Sam's face. "Buddy, you got as sweet a nature as your pooch over there."

He jerked his head towards June with a yellow-toothed leer. "Bet you put th' dog in doggy-style real good for him, don'tcha? Unnatur'l bitch. And you call us the monsters!"

June rose like a queen and laid a hand gently on Sam's arm. He lifted his other hand towards the demon.

"What the fuck is this now, some more 'talk to da hand' shit?" the demon scoffed. "Whatever you're slingin' ain't sticking this time, asshole."

Sam's face tightened, his eyes closing. The demon spat more blood and bellowed with laughter.

June pressed closer to Sam's side. The demon's laughter suddenly became choking. Black smoke crawled along his lips like an ugly slug.

June began to pant. Sam's face drew up into furrowed lines of intense effort. The black smoke slithered out and down the strangling demon's chin. It swayed in the air, a blind snake questing for a strike.

The guttural yell that burst out of Sam sounded far more pained than any noise the choking demon was making. June groaned, holding onto Sam now to keep from falling as her knees sagged.

Blood trickled out of Sam's nose, and the black smoke seemed to follow its lead. With a rush, it spilled out and pooled around the demon's chair, bursting into flames as it touched the floor.

Within seconds, nothing was left but a sulphurous reek and a limp corpse.

Sam dropped onto the floor, clutching his head and gasping. June followed him down. She sat behind him and pulled him back against her chest, one hand spread over his heart, the other cradling his forehead.

Breath by breath, Sam relaxed, the lines of agony smoothing away. He lolled his head on June's chest, to look up at her. "Thank you."

She shook her head and wiped the congealing blood off his upper lip. "Don't thank me for this. I failed you. I'm so sorry it hurt you so badly, Sam. Castiel said you could pull power from me. I didn't think I was fighting you in any way."

"You weren't," he assured her, and reached up to stroke her cheek. "There was no resistance. There just wasn't much there to take."

He closed his eyes and sighed. "We're both exhausted. We've been through three days on Hell's doorstep and a day on the road. But if we can't get back to speed in just a few hours, we're as good as dead."

"How close is Dean?"

Sam turned his head towards the northwest. "Two hours, three at the most."

June grunted as she got to her feet, and Sam held onto her as he pulled himself up.

"That's two or three hours recharge time," she said.

Sam gave a tired chuff. "Then let's spend it in a room where we won't have to listen to loud TVs and drunken sex."


	14. Chapter 14

"Cops found that Escalade Sam boosted. It was hid in a ditch outside Elk River," Bobby said, his voice crackly over the sketchy connection.

Dean dropped his head back against the rest. Might as well check the internal GPS for accuracy. "How far away am I?"

"A couple of hours. I pulled up a weather map, made some calls. There's a town not far from there, Cold Spring. Lighting up with demon sign."

"A good place to look." _The_ place to look, but he didn't have the time or inclination to get into that with Bobby. He'd save it for the post-game wrap-up.

The silence on the phone stretched out so long that he pulled it away from his ear to make sure the call hadn't dropped.

So he almost missed Bobby's softer, "Hey, listen."

"What?"

"Us finding Sam? It's gotta be about getting him back, not pushing him away."

Dean's lips thinned. He was pretty sure he wouldn't be the one doing the pushing. "Right."

"I know you're mad, Dean. I understand. You got a right to be, but I'm just saying. Be good to him anyway. You gotta get through to him."

Dean snapped the phone closed and dropped it back into his pocket.

_-oOo-_

"Ohhhh, this is _nice_," June moaned as they walked into the room.

Sam locked the door and gave her a weary smile. "Yeah, but don't get used to it, sweetheart. I can barely afford to keep you in the style to which you've become accustomed."

She kicked off her flats and flopped onto the king-sized bed spread-eagle.

"What? Not going to give the room the five-point sniff inspection and throw the bedspread into the corner?" Sam managed a weary chuckle as he dropped full-length face down onto the bed, bouncing her over a couple of inches.

She rolled over and snuggled close. He wrapped himself around her and rested his cheek against her hair.

"I'm too tired," she mumbled. "If there's bedbugs they can have a block party on my butt tonight."

"Hmm?" The syllable slid out on a yawn.

"Shhh," she crooned, and answered his yawn.

Sam's body sank into the mattress, utterly relaxed and completely exhausted. June pressed her face between his chest and armpit, soothed into sleep herself by the rich, comforting cloud of his scent.

_-oOo-_

A sharp knock on the door. Sam only moaned and pulled the pillow over his head. June hauled herself up as if out of quicksand. "Crap. What _now?_"

She slid off the bed and stumbled over to the door. A foot away she stopped and Sam popped up like he'd been hit with a cattle prod.

June flashed the devil sign. Sam grabbed his pistol off the nightstand and padded over to the door. He took position beside it, and gave June a sharp nod.

She jerked the door open and dove for the woman behind it. They both went to the floor, June elbow-slamming, kneeing and rabbit-punching for all she was worth and the woman beneath her giving back blow for blow.

"Sam! Get her off of me!"

"Ruby?" Sam fastened a hand around the nape of June's neck and hauled back. She rolled off and back into the room, landing on her feet more like a cat than a human, or a dog.

Ruby didn't get a much more gracious rescue, as he grabbed the front of her blouse, dragged her up to her feet and inside the room and used her back to slam the door. "What are you doing here?"

A feral roar of rage burst out of June and she sprang for Ruby again.

He spun. "June, SETTLE, damn you!"

June hit the brakes and spared him a glance only slightly less vicious than the Stare of Bloody Death she turned back on Ruby. She kept flexing her hands in and out of fists, and the muscles jumped in her jaws as if they were in the throes of tetanus, but she didn't—or couldn't—speak.

"Hello to you, too, Sam." Ruby brushed off her clothes and worked her neck until it resettled with a sharp click. "What is that… thing… doing here?"

"What are _you_ doing here?" he snapped.

"Sam, we were so close then three weeks with no calls, no voicemail, not even a text? Last week you finally call and get my hopes up but it's wham, bam and out the door again. A girl could get her feelings hurt."

"A girl could get a clue," he told her, voice almost silky. "I don't need you any more. You've been replaced."

"By that?" Ruby pointed to June and laughed. "You rely on her and you almost face-plant over a demon who's barely earned his membership card! You're weak, Sam. I know it, you know it. The sooner you get off your righteous white high horse and dump the mutt, the longer you'll live."

She tilted her head and gave him a winning smile. "You might even get a crack at Lilith. Why do you think it was so easy for your little pet there to rustle up a crash-test dummy for you?"

"Lilith's here?"

"Well, not _here _here," Ruby demurred, "But I've found out something big."

"What? Quit screwing around, Ruby and say what you came to say."

"I'm not going to say anything in front of _that_." Ruby jerked her chin towards June. "She's an angel-made listening device, Sam. Haven't you figured that out yet?"

June leaked a trickle of sound that sounded outraged.

Ruby moved closer to Sam, laid her hands on his hips and smiled up into his face. "Come on, Sam. Don't be that way, all stubborn and snarly. Don't you know by now I'm on your side here? Look, all I'm asking is that you to come with me—just one floor down to my room—and hear me out. What's the harm in that, hmm?"

"Just talk," Sam countered, "That's all."

"Scout's honor." Ruby held up her right hand, thumb and little fingers touching.

"_You_ were never a Girl Scout," Sam scoffed.

"Oh yes I was, for a little while," she countered with a laugh. "Gold Award even. Let's just say an interesting time at summer camp was had by all."

Sam grimaced, his face drawing up. "Don't want to hear about it."

"Good, because we don't really have time to walk down memory lane. Are you coming with me?"

Sam glanced back at June. Every line of her body strained towards him, and her eyes were wide and desperate. She shook her head so hard her hair whipped into her face.

He went to her, not reacting to Ruby's huff of annoyance behind his back. "I'm sorry," he whispered to June and cradled her face in his hands. "I have to do this. We have to find Lilith and this is the only way."

He stroked her trembling lower lip with the pad of his thumb. "I know you hate this, sweetheart, but I can take care of myself here. Stay in the room, and don't contact Dean. He'll find me if I'm not back before he hits town."

"Ssssaammm…" she managed in a low, frantic whine.

He kissed her forehead and went out the door. Ruby followed and closed it behind her back, the lock clicking shut. "That was so sweet, Sam. But you should have gone for a Lab. Way less pervy."

As she spoke, she slid a pick into the room lock and broke it off with a twist of her wrist.


	15. Chapter 15

Ruby turned onto her side and bunched her pillow up into a conversational height. "Your appetite's gotten much bigger."

Sam turned his head towards her and snapped, "What's that supposed to mean?"

She stroked his shoulder and smiled. "Sam, relax. It's okay. It's good. Just means you're getting stronger, that's all. It means you're strong enough to kill Lilith. Just in time, too, because the final seals are breaking."

"How many are left?" Sam sat up, shoved himself back against the headboard.

Ruby gave a recumbent shrug. "Three...two..."

"What? Where are the angels?"

"Screwing the pooches maybe. Who cares? The point is, it's looking more and more like we're getting down to the final seal. And I found out something big."

"What?" The word was loaded with sharp impatience.

"Seal sixty-six." Ruby walked her fingers across his chest in time to the words. Her expression was avid, almost playful. "It can't be broken by just any demon. Apparently, only Lucifer's first can do it."

"Lucifer's first?"

Ruby nodded. "Ok, Demon Sunday School story: God prefers humans to angels. Lucifer gets jealous and then he gets creative. And he twists and tempts a human soul into the very first demon as a 'screw you' to God. It's what got him locked up in the first place."

"That was Lilith?" Sam's eyebrows rose.

"Black Mass Barbie's way older than she looks."

"Wait. So if Lilith is the only one who can break the final seal, if I get to her in time—"

Ruby smiled and patted his chest. "Then Lucifer never busts out of his cage. Smart boy. You get the blue biscuit."

"Great. You figure out where she is?"

"The bitch can hide." Ruby propped her chin on her hand. "But I finally have a lead on someone who might be able to help us. I closed in on a member of Lilith's entourage. You might call her a personal chef."

"Chef? Seriously? What does she eat?"

"You don't wanna know."

"No, I really don't—but tell me anyway."

Ruby leaned in close and whispered into Sam's ear. As she spoke, his face sagged and crumpled in horror and disgust.

When she leaned back, he held up a hand. "Just, give me a minute to get that out of my head."

"I warned you." She worked a knot out of her hair while Sam mastered his nausea.

He cleared his throat. "So. Our demon gourmet nurse. You sure?"

"She'll be there. Albany General, graveyard shift tomorrow night. Meantime, if you're gonna be strong enough to kill Lilith, you're gonna need more than I can give you right now. Way more than that furry little burnt-out battery upstairs could ever give you." She tilted her head with a coy smirk. "_I _never have to recharge."

Sam let out a long breath, dropped his head back against the headboard and closed his eyes.

Ruby straddled him and put her arms around his shoulders in a loose embrace. "Sam. Come on. It's okay."

"I know I need more. I get it." He opened his eyes and looked into hers. "I know it's okay. I just—I wish he'd trusted me, you know?"

"Sorry." She lightly bumped her forehead against his and left it there.

Sam's voice dropped. "I just hope...you know, when all this is over...I hope we can fix things."

_-oOo-_

As the door opened, Dean watched from around the corner, utterly still, mentally making himself nothing more than part of the wallpaper.

Sam hesitated for a half-step, then gave his head a shake and moved around the opposite corner out of Dean's sight. The elevator bell dinged. Dean waited until he heard the door slide open before he went to the room Sam had left, and eased the door open.

It was a creaking floorboard that screwed him. Ruby spun with a gasp, throwing up her arm to deflect his downward strike with the demon-knife. They grabbed each other's arms, straining with all their strength.

He spun her, using his greater mass to slam her back against the wall. He leaned in, twisting her arm. Her eyes widened and her lips parted, telegraphing the sudden involuntary yielding of overtaxed muscles. Dean flung off her hold and drew back for the killing strike.

Sam caught his arm, and he felt the grip like a stunning blow to the back of his head.

"No! Let her go!" Sam flung him around, up against the bed and held up his hands. He had the knife. He sucked in a breath and his voice came out more level. "Just take it easy."

Dean stood up, squared his shoulders. "Well, it must've been some party you two had going, considering how hard you tried to keep me from crashing it. Well," he jerked his head with a click of his tongue, "solid try, but here I am."

"Dean, I'm glad you're here." Sam's face smoothed into his 'let's all be reasonable' mask. The jarring jangle from Sam's nerves made that more of a fake-off than ever. "Look. Let's just talk about this."

Behind Sam, Ruby rolled her eyes.

"Soon as she's dead, we can talk all you want."

Sam's lips pursed and he blew a hard breath out his nose. So he was picking up some primal signals himself.

Ruby's eyes flicked between them both and she suddenly didn't seem so damn smug.

Sam spoke to her over his shoulder. "Ruby, get out of here."

"No, she's not going anywhere." Dean took a step forward.

Ruby shot him a look like a scared rabbit and bolted. Sam stepped between them to keep Dean from following. They both watched her slip through the door until it slammed behind her.

"She's poison, Sam."

"It's not what you think, Dean."

"Look what she's done to you!" Dean flung his arms in the air. "I mean, she up and vanishes weeks at a time, leaves you cracking out for another hit—"

"She was _looking_ for _**Lilith**_."

"That is French for manipulating your ass ten ways from Sunday."

"You're _wrong_, Dean."

"Sam, you're _lying_ to yourself. I know that like you know I just _want_you to be okay. You would do the same for me. We both know you would."

"Just listen." Sam lifted his hand, and realized he still had the knife in it. He gave a little apologetic shrug and tossed it over onto the bed. He held out his hands again. "Just listen, for a second. We got a lead on a demon close to Lilith. Come with us, Dean. We'll do this together."

"That sounds great. As long as it's you, me and maybe the dog. Demon bitch is a deal-breaker. You kiss her goodbye, we can go right now."

Sam rolled his eyes and looked past Dean's shoulder, then back. "I can't."

Dean turned his back, nodding defeat to the grieved inner voice that reminded him that he'd known Sam would react this way.

"Dean, I need her to help me kill Lilith."

Dean laid his hand over his mouth, struggling for control.

"I know you can't wrap your head around it, just like you couldn't understand about June at first, but maybe one day you'll understand this too." Sam's voice was so earnest, so pleading, so sincere. So deluded. "I'm the only one who can do this, Dean."

Dean turned around and shook his head. "No, you're not the one who's gonna do this."

"Right, that's right, I forgot." Sam nodded, with a mocking bob of his head. "The _angels_think it's you."

"You don't think I can?"

"No. You can't. You're not strong enough."

"And who the hell are you?"

"I'm being practical here." The blood-goaded anger lurking beneath the surface began to simmer and tightened Sam's voice. "I'm doing what needs to be done."

"Yeah? You're not gonna do a single damn thing."

"Stop bossing me around, Dean." Sam growled, and drew a hissed breath. When he spoke again, his voice came out shaky, urgent. "Look. My whole life, you take the wheel, you call the shots, and I trust you because you are my brother. Now I'm asking you, for once, trust _me_."

Sam looked at him, breathing hard, a pathetic expectant look on his face.

But there was no other answer he could give him. Not about this. No matter what it would do to them both. Dean shook his head. "No. You don't know what you're doing, Sam."

"Yes, I do."

"Then that's _worse_."

"Why? Look, I'm telling you—"

"Because then it's not something that you're doing, it's what you _are_! If you do this now, after everything we know, it means—" He clamped his mouth shut before the rest of the words could fall out.

"What?" Sam tilted his head, challenge and tears in his eyes. "No. Say it."

"It means you're a monster." He felt the pain of the words going out, he felt the pain of them going into Sam.

Sam looked away, nodding against a sob.

One of the tears he'd been fighting rolled down his cheek. Sam spun and knocked it off his face with a brutal punch. Dean sprawled on the floor, stunned by the impact of Sam's fist and the emotional wallop that landed with it.

He stood up and faced a stranger who only looked like his brother. Sam was breathing hard, his shoulders hunched. His lips were drawn back from his teeth.

They didn't need any more words. No more magical mystery bonding crap to read each other loud and clear. Dean drew back and threw a punch at Sam's face with all he had in him.

Then everything was rage and betrayal and pain and fists and the taste of blood and the noise of shattering glass and splintering wood.

Dean's mind didn't clear until he was on his back, Sam bearing down on him, hands and hatred tightening around his throat till gray fog began closing everything down to tunnel vision as he strangled.

The deadly pressure suddenly released, leaving him to helplessly gasp and cough as Sam towered over him, breathing hard.

"You don't know me." Sam spat, voice acid with contempt. "You never did. And you never will."

Sam turned away from him as he struggled to sit up.

"You walk out that door," Dean wheezed, "don't you _ever_come back."

Sam stopped at the door and turned back. He looked down at him, released a sharp breath, and walked out the door.


	16. Chapter 16

The next thing Dean was aware of, he was lying on his side in the recovery position, blinking at a pair of small pale feet in worn-out shoes, the hem of a green dress draping down to meet them.

"Thank the Father! I was beginning to be afraid you weren't going to w—!"

He rolled onto his back to glower up at June. "Why did you let him do it?"

She helped him sit up, as tenderly as a mother, and snarled her words into his face like a pit bull. "_LET_ him do it? I don't _let_ him do anything, Dean. Did he knock the memory of just who's in control of me clean out of your head?"

"Then why aren't you with him now, Chi?" He pulled a shard of glass out of his scalp with a wince and tossed it aside.

"Because when that disgusting _thing_ showed up and got its talons back into him," June's nose crinkled and her lips drew up in disgust, "He forced me to stay where I was. _Right_ where I was, like not able to budge out of my own tracks—and he jammed the friggin' door lock as he went out. It was half an hour before I could move enough to call management to get me out! By the time I was freed, he'd already…." She gagged and shook her head. "Anyway, by then he'd beaten you half to death and taken off with _it_."

"Why didn't you follow him?" Dean put a hand on her shoulder and used her as a prop to shove himself to his feet. He swayed dangerously and she grabbed his arm.

"Because I didn't want to leave you to drown in your own blood or maybe go into a fatal coma from a subdural hematoma, you big jerk."

"You're supposed to protect _HIM_, not me!" The noise of his own shout had him grabbing his head before it popped off his neck.

"That's really hard to do when he won't allow me to come anywhere within fifty miles of him!"

He staggered over and dropped down onto the end of the bed. It was about the only piece of furniture in the room that wasn't smashed or covered in broken glass. "Are you really that much of a friggin' robot?"

She knelt in front of him and laid her hands on his knees. She looked up into his face with the same oddly bland but deeply urgent expression Cas used when he was trying to pass on something dire but cryptic.

"Maybe I am. I'm not human, Dean. I haven't been given the full measure of free will you have. My two prime directives are in head-on collision mode here: Protect Sam. Obey Sam. I can't _voluntarily_ disobey his order to not follow him. Not when I know he isn't in acute peril. Right now, he's all kinds of awful, but he's not in any imminent danger."

"But if someone dragged you along against your will?"

"Well," she gave him a flicker of an impish smile. "I'm just a very small, scrawny woman and you're a big powerful guy—if you coerced me, I wouldn't have any choice but to go along where ever you may choose to travel."

"Then you better run away now, Muttley," he said, trying not to breathe too deeply. "'Cause I'm gonna force you to wrap my ribs and get me out to the car. Depending on how many times I pass out on the way, I might even make you drive."

"Oh no. There is no escape. Oh my. I am doomed." She stood up, jerked the sheet right out from under him and started ripping it into strips.

He grunted and cussed his way out of jacket and shirt. As she began to bind up his busted-up torso, he frowned at her again. "Why'd you break him out in the first place?"

She wouldn't look at him. "Castiel told me to."

"Cas?"

"Ummhmm. Far as I know we're talkin' about the same one. Five-eleven, black hair, ratty trench coat, scary blue eyes? Smells like a summer rose garden in Heaven? That Castiel."

"And you didn't ask _why?_"

She did look at him then, with genuine innocent bewilderment. "Why would I?"

"Oh, I don't know, Scruffy." He gingerly swung his arm to indicate the trashed room. "Maybe because anybody with two brain cells would have seen all _this_ coming?"

She jerked the knot tight on the binding and dropped her hands into her lap. Her hair veiled her lowered face from him. "An _angel_ freed me from my chains with a single touch and told me to release my Hunter and fulfill my purpose to Sam and our Father. Would you question such a divine command?"

"You bet your sweet ass I would!"

She jerked her head up, shock on her face.

"In case you missed the memo, June, _we can't trust them_. Any of 'em! No more than we can trust the damn demons!"

"But Castiel—"

"Castiel my left hind foot! You take a good long drink of Sam right now. You tell me if he's better off now than when he was locked down in that panic room. You tell me if what he's doing right now is what's best for him, for anyone on the friggin' planet!"

Her head jerked to the south-east, then turned back to him, her eyes wet. He found out what it felt like to watch unquestioning faith die in someone's eyes.

"Don't trust anyone but yourself, June. Not this Father of yours, not Cas, not me—not even Sam. Question every damn word anyone says to you, and if it smells the least bit fishy, you watch your back and cover your ass or someone will rip it off your bones and hand it back bloody."

"That's a cold, lonely way to live, Dean," she whispered.

"Well welcome to our world, sweetheart. Hope you enjoy the scenery." He levered himself to his feet again via her shoulder and tested the binding. Tight enough. He reached for his shirt and winced.

"Ok. I'm forcing you again. Help me get my clothes back on."

_-oOo-_

They managed to make it down to the parking garage without attracting too much attention.

"Give me the keys, Dean. You need to lie down in the back and rest."

"Not happenin', Winn-Dixie. Shotgun or sidewalk."

She opened driver's door anyway, but before he got words out, she was sliding across to the other side. "If you pass out and kill me, I'll haunt you."

"You'll have to get in line and take a number." He reached into his jacket pocket for his keys. The movement set off a stab of pain that made him screw his eyes shut for a long blink.

When his eyes opened, he was standing way too close to a painting of a woman in way too much dress on way too little swing seat.

He staggered back, looking around him. The place could have been Liberace's living room, all gold trim, candelabras and big-ass oil paintings.

"Hello, Dean."

He spun.

Cas stood across the room. "It's almost time."


	17. Chapter 17

He'd hit the dreg ends of his patience and burned through all his reasonable excuses for lack of communication. Bobby stalked back into the house, grabbed up the phone and dialed. Sam's number went straight to voicemail, no big surprise there. He hung up without leaving a message. What he had to say to that boy needed to be said face to face.

Bobby dialed Dean's number. The connection rang for far too long, until a faux-pleasant recorded voice answered. _Welcome to Arc Mobile. The number you are trying to reach has calling restrictions which have prevented the completion of your call._

"Calling restrictions?" He laid the handset back on the receiver, worry etching lines into his face. "What's goin' on with you, boy?"

_-oOo-_

"We're gonna take you to the nursery, sugar. Let mommy and daddy get some sleep. He's a beautiful child," the nurse said to the new parents, as she wheeled their sleeping son out in a bassinet.

In the hallway, she leaned over the newborn baby with a black-eyed smile and a saccharine coo. "Absolutely _scrumptious!_"

She turned off the main corridor, through a swinging door. As she rolled the baby along the deserted service corridor, she began to sweetly sing. "Patty-cake, patty-cake, baker's man bake me a cake as fast as you can. Pat it and roll it and mark it with a 'b' and put it in the oven—"

Her song ended in a startled shriek as she was slammed backwards and pinned against the far wall, her toes barely touching the floor.

Sam stopped the free-rolling bassinet with a casual touch as he approached the invisibly suspended demon, his face calm and his movements unhurried. "So. We need to talk."

_-oOo-_

Yelling his head off did nothing. Pounding on the double doors and trying to jimmy the latch open did zilch. At a loss for further amusement, Dean wandered the big room, looking at the paintings. He didn't know art, but he figured these were probably the real high-brow deal; whether they were painted pre- or post-mortem would be a fascinating factoid.

He stopped in front of the golden floor harp, as tall as he was. "I've never actually seen one of these things," he murmured and reached out to run a finger along the multi-colored strings. The instrument responded with a ripple of tones that sure sounded like an angel's harp should.

Dean chuckled, and stroked the strings again. There was good ol' do re mi. About the extent of his musical education, but enough. Probably for the first time, a slightly stumbling version of the signature riff of 'Smoke On The Water' hit the celestial airways.

That burned maybe five minutes, until 'Purple Haze' defeated his efforts. His restless circuit of the room stopped short when something out of place caught the corner of his eye. Dean turned towards the big marble table in the center of the room.

Ten seconds ago, there'd been nothing but an ornate bowl on it. Now, there was a silver urn the size of a toilet, packed full of ice and bottles of beer. Beside it was an equally oversized platter holding an artfully arranged pile of cheeseburgers. Which, now that he could see them, he could also smell. Hot and greasy and rich, like they'd just come off the grill.

"Hello, Dean. You're looking fit."

Geez, he wished those flappy bastards would cut that out! He was certain they did it just to see the monkeys jump.

Dean deliberately waited a beat to turn, so as not to give 'em a payoff this time. "Well, how 'bout this? The suite life of Zach and Cassie."

Both angels stood there like a couple of department store dummies.

"It's a..." He shook his head. What was the point? "Never mind. So, what is this? Where the hell am I?"

"Call it a Green room," Zachariah said, with one of his shady used car salesman smiles. "We're closing in on the grand finale here. We want to keep you safe before show time."

"Try a burger." The angel gestured towards them like an over-helpful head-waiter. "They're your favorite. From that seaside shack in Delaware. You were eleven, I think."

"I'm not hungry."

"No? How about Ginger from season two of 'Gilligan's Island'? You do have a thing for her, don't you?"

Ok. That one he did give about five seconds of thought. "Tempting." He shook his head. "And weird."

"We'll throw in Mary Ann for free," Zachariah wheedled in a totally creepy good ol' boy tone.

Holy shit. Talk about your sins finding you out and all. Yeah, sure, he'd thought about it, but come on. He'd been barely fourteen and had no other outlets.

"No," he gave his head a hard shake. "_No_. Let's... bail on the holodeck, okay? I want to know what the game plan is."

"Let us worry about that," Zachariah crooned like a cheap funeral director. "We want you... focused, relaxed."

'Well, I'm about to be pissed, and leaving, so start talking, Chuckles."

Zachariah released a heavy sigh, and when he spoke, his voice was matter-of-fact, edging on irritated. "All the seals have fallen. Except one."

Dean lifted his eyebrows, truly startled by that info. "That's an impressive score. That's... that's right up there with the Washington Generals."

"You think sarcasm's appropriate, do you? Considering..." the angel smiled like a bloated shark, "you started all this? But the final seal... it'll be different."

"Why?"

"Lilith has to break it. She's the only one who can. Tomorrow night - midnight."

"Where?"

"We're working on it."

"Well work harder."

"We'll do our job," the angel commanded. "You just make sure you do yours."

"Yeah, and what is that, exactly? If I'm supposed to be the one who stops her, how? With the knife?" Dean made sure he leaned heavy on the insubordination.

"All in good time," Zachariah sing-songed.

"Isn't _now_ a good time?"

Zachariah lifted a hand in hollow benediction. "Have faith."

"What, in you?" Dean scoffed. "Give me one good reason why I should."

He instantly had a face full of pissed-off Zachariah, almost nose to nose.

"Because you swore your obedience. So obey."

Dean looked past Zachariah's shoulder at Cas, and Cas suddenly decided to contemplate his shoes.

_-oOo-_

"What, no devil's trap?"

Sam looked down on the demonic nurse, pinned to the weathered table by nothing but his will. "I don't need one."

"Look at you - all 'roided up." She gave him and Ruby a scathingly flirtatious smile. "It's like A-Rod and Madonna over here."

"Where's Lilith?"

"I'm not scared of you."

"Yeah, you are, actually." His voice was light, almost amused. "And with good reason."

Her mocking tone turned pragmatic. "Look... what's my upside? Okay, I tell you, you kill me. I don't tell you, you still kill me. I get away somehow, Lilith will definitely kill me. So where's my carrot?"

Sam's mild expression turned to one of contempt. "I think what you should be worrying about is what happens _before_ you die."

He reached out a hand, eyes half-closed in concentration.

Instantly her body arched and she shrieked in agony, thrashing her head as she screamed with all her strength. "Stop! Stop! _Please!_"

"You'll tell me where she is?"

Half-screaming, half crying, the demon nodded her head in desperate agreement. "Fine. fine. Just... let me die."

"Deal." Sam dropped his hand. Her body dropped back to the tabletop, lax but trembling.

"Tomorrow night, midnight," she gasped. "She's gonna be at a convent - St. Mary's, Ilchester, Maryland."

"A _convent?_" Sam shook his head and started to raise his hand again.

"Lilith!" she blurted, her words coming out almost on top of one another. "She's gonna break the final seal."

"And what _is_ the final seal?"

"I don't know," she confessed, desperate.

Her body arched again and the scream that ripped out of her rang around the empty room. "I don't know! I don't know!"

He lowered his hand and she began to sob, thrashing her head with every word, her imprisoned body writhing as much as it could. "I don't know! I _swear!_ Please! I'm begging you. Kill me, _please!_"

One word of final judgment. "Fine."

Before his hand could come up again, Ruby grabbed his arm. "Wait. You can't."

"Why not?" He jerked his arm free of her hold.

Because we've got to take her with us. It's the final run on the Death Star, Luke, and you need more juice than I got."

"You promised," the sobbing demon whimpered.

"Sorry, sister." Ruby patted her on the head. "You're our walking, talking can of whup-ass."

"You bitch!" she hissed.

"I know," Ruby tsked, then gave her a cocky smirk. "Just can't trust anyone these days."

Their prisoner relaxed back against the table top, her terror and tears vanishing as if they'd never existed. "Well, least you won't be able to crack me open that easy."

"That so?" Ruby rolled her stiletto through her fingers.

"Don't forget," the other demon reminded her with all her original sly coyness intact. "It's not just me you're bleeding. In fact, I think I'm gonna take a little, um, siesta in the subconscious. You know, hand over the wheel for a little bit."

"What are you talking about?" Sam snapped.

The demon threw her head back, a malevolent smile on her face. "Cindy McClellan, R.N.!" She called out in a cheerful shout. "Come on _down!_"

Her eyes closed and her head lolled to one side, body limp as the new dead. With a spastic gasp, her eyes flew open and a different soul looked out her eyes.

Those eyes rolled, taking in the ruined, hanging plaster above her. "What...?" She let out a long groan, then caught sight of Sam. "Where am I?"

She tried to struggle, but was no more able to move than she was before. "I'm… I'm paralyzed! What's going on? What happened to me? Help! Help, Please!"

"Great," Ruby snapped, annoyed.


	18. Chapter 18

Zach and Cassie pulled a synchronized vanishing act over an hour ago, more or less. He was losing track in here. Dean pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, checked the time then flipped it like a coin.

He paced the room, boots thudding on the parquet. He stopped and looked down at his phone again. Weird and worrying as this whole deal was, he was a whole hell of a lot more anxious about something else.

"Aw, screw it." He opened the phone and dialed.

_'It's Sam. Leave me a message.' _

"Hey, it's me," he said after the beep. His voice sounded weird. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Look, I'll just get right to it. I'm still pissed, and I owe you a serious beat-down. But…" He closed his eyes and dug a thumb into the tight knot between his eyes. "I shouldn't have said what I said. You know… I'm not Dad."

He sighed. "We're brothers. You know, we're family. And, um… no matter how bad it gets, that doesn't change." He swallowed but his next words still came out shaky and choked. "Sammy, I'm sorr—"

The damned beep cut him off. He snapped the phone closed.

-oOo-

"Penny for your thoughts."

"Not worth that," Sam muttered without looking away from the darkness outside the car window.

"Sam, hey, whatever it is, talk to me about it," Ruby's voice was sympathetic.

"The last person I want to discuss this with is you."

She rolled her eyes with a put-upon huff. "So where's your guilt trip taking you tonight? That smack-down with your self-righteous prick of a brother? Weeping hearts and violins over the squealing sow in the trunk? Please, you know she's not going to leave her sniveling little nurse-suit standing when she blows. Besides, she throws newborn babies into a blender to make smoothies, Sam. Even for me, that's one toke over the line."

Sam turned on her. "You have no idea what I'm thinking right now."

His expression was as savage as his voice, but she threw back her head and laughed. "No, baby, it's you who doesn't have a clue. Look, Sam. This is the bottom of the ninth with two outs here. You can _not_ choke at the plate. So yeah, I know exactly what you're thinking. You drink that pig's blood back there, you go full metal monster and it's all on you big broad masochistic shoulders because horrible evil Azazel poisoned baby Sammy and murdered your poor defenseless mother."

"You don't kn—"

Ruby almost threw him through the windshield, the car's tires squalling as she stomped the brake to the floor.

"No! YOU don't know anything!" she burst out, and shook her head with a scathing laugh. "Sam, Sam, Sam. Poor guilt-riddled, suffering Sam. Ready to tie yourself to the stake and let your brother strike the match. I'm sick of it! You blow this because of some misplaced attack of remorse, it's over for _all_ of us and I'm not going to let that happen. I think it's high time you know the truth."

"The truth about what?" Sam gritted.

Ruby slapped the steering wheel. "About everything, you dumbass! Why do you think Azazel worked so hard to get your pedigreed parents together? It's in your genes, Sam. You've got the Shine, baby, and you'd have it even if you didn't know what a demon was."

"But the blood…."

"Gawd, and you got a free ride to friggin' Stanford? Think, Sam! Those six little drops of blood, that whole horror show in your nursery? It was a psychological set-up, Sam. A wedge driven right to the bottom of your psyche so you'll crack the way the other side wants you to when the right pressure's applied."

He stared at her, aghast. Sick horror replaced the shock. "So all that demon blood—"

Sam lunged for her. His hands closed around her throat, but her blade was at his. He started to squeeze anyway. The blade bit in.

"Don't flatter yourself," Ruby croaked. "Without it, you couldn't even bend a spoon."

He flung her back against the driver's side door. She sat back up and crossed her arms over her chest, the stained blade tapping impatiently against her sleeve. "Look, I know you don't like it. Hell, I'm not exactly thrilled to be nothing more to you than a whopping dose of steroids, but we didn't have time for Dagobah training camp. I had to get you up to speed the fastest way I could, and baby, that means blood."

"Then why do we still need her?" Sam jerked his head towards the rear. "Let me exorcise her and we can go on. Somebody will pick Cindy up in the morning if she survives."

"Sorry, Sam. You still need the power-up. Sure, maybe once this is over we can taper you off the good stuff. You can ditch the magic feather and fly all on your own, but not now. We have to do this now, tonight, or you, me, and the whole damn world can kiss our asses goodbye."

Ruby accelerated down the road.

-oOo-

Now Dean was really going stir-crazy. Nine hundred frigging paintings and mirrors but they couldn't throw in a large screen TV or a stereo or hell, a cereal box?

He stopped at one of the redundant mantles and gave the little white figurine there a sour assessment. It looked way too much the statue in that church in Rhode Island where Sam almost went all masked avenger on the word of a seriously confused vengeful spirit.

Dean reached out with one finger and tipped the little praying angel off the mantelpiece. She shattered with a satisfying smash and a respectable shard spray.

Castiel was suddenly looming over his reflected shoulder in the mantelpiece mirror, a faint hint of disapproval around his mouth. Dean couldn't stop the guilty flinch.

"You asked to see me?" Castiel asked.

Dean cleared his throat and turned, pulling on that air of unrepentant self-confidence he'd perfected in junior high. "Yeah, listen. I, uh, I need something."

Aw hell, it had been a long time since junior high.

"Anything you wish," Cas agreed.

"I need you to take me to see Sam."

"Why?" Cas did that odd, birdlike head tilt thing of his.

"There's something I got to talk to him about."

"What's that?"

"The B.M. I took this morning," Dean scoffed. "What's it to you? Just make it snappy."

Cas shook his head. "I don't think that's wise."

"Well, I didn't ask you for your opinion."

Cas frowned. "Have you forgotten what happened the last time you met?"

"No. That's the whole point." Dean spread his hands. "Listen, I'm gonna do whatever you mooks want, okay? I just need to tie up this one thing. Five minutes - that's all I need."

"No." That came out harsh. Well, harsh for Mr. Monotone.

"What do you mean, no? Are you saying that I'm trapped here?"

"You can go wherever you want," Cas answered, his tone mild again.

"Super. I want to go see Sam."

"Except there." Harsh and annoyed.

"Then take me to June."

"That is not possible. June has been… dismissed."

The dropping sensation in his gut startled him. "What the hell does that mean, 'dismissed'?"

Cas just tilted his head like a damn jaybird.

Dean spun away from him and leaned against the mantel at arm's length, fingers trying to dig into the marble. "I want to take a walk."

"Fine." Cas sounded vaguely relieved. "I'll go with you."

"Alone."

"No."

"You know what? Screw this noise." Dean pushed himself off the mantel and brushed by Cas, headed for the door. "I'm out of here."

"Through what door?"

Dean turned back to Cas with a scowl. When he turned back around, the double doorway was a smooth white wall.

And, of course, Cas was now nowhere in sight. "Damn it!"

-oOo-

June caught that wince and the spike in pain-scent as Dean reached for his pocket. "Are you all—?"

But Dean was no longer there. Gone between one blink and the next as if raptured. June gasped, scanned the interior of the car on instinctive reflex. She flopped across the seat to peer into the driver's side floorboard.

"Like that's where he'd be, you dink," she muttered to herself and straightened so fast she whacked the back of her head against the bottom of the steering wheel. She yelped and rubbed the spot and finally looked, really looked, out the windshield. June gasped again and jerked the door open, all but falling out of the car in her haste to exit.

Dean's abrupt absence wasn't her only inexplicable problem. They had been in a hotel parking garage, the sunny day a brilliant contrast beyond. Now she stood in the open air on the edge of a BiggerMart parking lot, and full darkness stretched above the artificial brilliance of the sodium lights.

"Dean Winchester," she called playfully under her breath, as she had in their post-bonding game in the woods, "Come out, come out, where ever you are!" She closed her eyes and like a compass needle swinging towards the magnetic pole, her body turned to the south-west.

A slow, smug smile spread across her face. It disappeared as abruptly as Dean and her eyes sprang open again. She looked east due north-east, pivoted to true west. Then looked straight up. Then south. "This is impossible!" she whispered, and slapped the fender in frustration.

"Oh shit—I'm sorry Baby! Don't be a dent. Please don't be a dent." She rubbed at the smear of her hand print on the glossy black paint. The metal was still straight beneath. She leaned on the fender then at arms' length, head hanging between.

Two deep, slow breaths and she lifted her head and straightened. Her face was smooth, no emotion at all. "Ok, Dean, wherever you are, feeling you means you're still alive. You stay that way till I can figure this out." June got back into the car and pulled out her knife.

"You may bouncing all over the map, but Sam's still pinging away loud and clear, moving east. Less than fifty miles away, and I sure as hell didn't bring myself here of my own volition. So let's finish this trip to the center of our universe."

She pried the steering column cover off and gave a curt snort. "I know you're gonna want to beat me like a drum for this, sugar. You come back, and I'll not only let you, I'll laugh with every blow."

Quickly as a professional thief, she fished out the power wires, cut and stripped them then joined them with a single twist. Two more deft flicks of the knife cut and stripped the heavier starter wire. Bringing that third wire into contact with the conjoined pair provoked a fat, bright electrical spark. The Impala's powerful engine awoke with a cough and a throaty roar.

June straightened and put the car in gear. "Let's go jerk a knot in Sam's tail, girlfriend."

Baby left smoking rubber on the parking lot.


	19. Chapter 19

"Sam, it's time. Are we doing this or not?"

Sam didn't look away from the weather-beaten sign. 'St. Mary's Covent—2 miles.' "Give me a minute to think."

She groaned with annoyance. "Sam –"

"Give me a damn minute, Ruby!" he roared over his shoulder.

Ruby shrank back, wrapped her arms around herself. "Better think fast," she muttered.

Sam ignored her. He slid his phone out of his pocket and dialed.

_'You have one unheard message, sent today at 10: 06 pm. First unheard message:'_

Dean's voice poured out of the speaker, hatred and revulsion undiminished by time and distance. "_Listen to me, you bloodsucking freak. Dad always said I'd either have to save you or kill you. Well, I'm giving you fair warning. I'm done trying to save you. You're a monster, Sam - a vampire. You're not you anymore. And there's no going back._"

Ruby smirked behind his back.

The beep sounded. _'First archived message—'_ Sam hit the end button before his father's last message could begin to play. He found the button by memory, almost blinded by the tears standing in his eyes. He dropped the phone into his pocket. He didn't look back. "Do it."

"Thank gawd," Ruby burst out and went around and opened the trunk.

"No! No! Please!" Cindy pleaded.

"Shut up bitch!"

The crack of a hard slap, then a desperate, dying scream.

Sam closed his eyes.

"Come and get it, big guy!" Ruby called out brightly.

Sam swallowed hard then turned and went around the end of the Mustang as if he were going to his gallows.

Cindy's corpse hung head-down over the bumper. Her blood trickled in a diminishing stream down over her face onto the ground.

Ruby stood beside her, licking a thick coating of the woman's blood off her hands like a grooming cat.

"What the fuck have you done?" Sam shouted, surging towards Ruby.

"Oh grow up, Sam!" she laughed as he grabbed her shoulders. "There's more than one way to share blood."

She wiped her hand over her mouth and yanked his head down into a brutal, tainted kiss. "All you need is a top-off, anyway," she breathed into his mouth.

_-oOo-_

Dean paced the room again, and pulled his phone out of his pocket. He dialed Sam's number again, but this time all he heard was warbling static on the line.

"You can't reach him, Dean." Cas's voice spoke from behind him. "You're outside your coverage zone."

This time, he didn't flinch. He didn't turn around. "What are you gonna do to Sam?"

"Nothing," Cas answered with a sigh, his voice almost human. He moved one side, over to one of the paintings, his shoes scuffing against the floor as if he was too tired to pick up his feet. "He's gonna do it to himself."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dean turned to find Cas facing him with a slight frown.

Cas looked down at his shoes again.

"Oh, right, right." Dean got up in Cas's face, fists stuffed into his jacket pockets. "Got to toe the company line. Why are you here, Cas?"

"We've been through much together, you and I. And I just wanted to say, I'm sorry it ended like this."

He had to take a moment on that one. "Sorry?" he scoffed. He spun, smashing his fist into Cas's jaw. It was like hitting a train, and had about as much effect. Hell, he could almost have sworn he heard a clang, but that was probably just the pain talking. He turned his back again, cradling and flexing his throbbing hand against his chest. "It's Armageddon, Cas. You need a bigger word than 'sorry.'"

Cas stepped around and spread his hands. "Try to understand - this is long foretold. This is your—"

"Destiny?" Dean spat. "Don't give me that 'holy' crap. Destiny, 'God's plan...' It's all a bunch of lies, you poor, stupid son of a bitch! It's just a way for your bosses to keep me and keep you in line! You know what's real? People, families - that's real. And you're gonna watch them all burn?"

Cas got into his face, and for the first time, there was an emotion plain on his. Contempt. "What is so worth saving? I see nothing but pain here. I see inside you. I see your guilt, your anger, confusion." His scorn softened. "In paradise, all is forgiven. You'll be at peace. Even with Sam."

Cas's gaze slid down and away, but Dean followed it down until Cas's eyes met his again.

"You can take your peace..." Dean murmured, "and shove it up your lily-white ass." His voice rose and hardened. "'Cause I'll take the pain and the guilt. I'll even take Sam as is. It's a lot better than being some Stepford _bitch_ in paradise! This is simple, Cas!"

Cas turned and walked away.

Dean was right on his heels. "No more crap about being a good soldier. There is a right and there is a wrong here, and you know it."

He grabbed Cas's shoulder and jerked the angel around to face him. "Look at me! You know it! You were gonna help me once, weren't you? That dream, you were gonna warn me about all this, before some bigger angel-fish swallowed you up and dragged you back to bible camp. Help me - now. _Please_."

Cas still wouldn't meet his eyes. "What would you have me do?"

"Get me to Sam! We can stop this before it's too late."

"I do that, we will all be hunted. We'll _all_ be killed." Cas's face was uneasy, and he kept glancing over Dean's shoulder as he spoke.

"If there is anything worth dying for... this is it."

Cas slowly shook his head, and tore his eyes away from Dean's intense stare.

"You spineless... _soulless_ son of a bitch," Dean hissed. He turned his back, walked away. "What do you care about dying? You're already dead. We're done."

"Dean –"

"We're _done!"_


	20. Chapter 20

The hallway outside of the chapel was lined with men and women standing at silent attention. A tall, slender blonde woman in a white silk evening gown stood in front of the desecrated altar of St. Mary's. White candles dripped wax over silver candelabras as she turned the yellowed vellum pages of the ancient book placed between them.

Behind her, a man approached holding a chalice brimming with human blood. His long face was lined with apprehension. As the woman turned, he dropped his eyes with submissive respect and not a little fear.

She smiled down on him with gentle benevolence. "Don't be afraid. We're going to save the world."

He bowed his head to her and walked away as she turned back to the altar. A deep rustling sound turned her attention once more to the rear of the chapel.

All those standing vigil in the hallway were crumpled onto the floor, motionless.

Sam stepped out of the vestibule and into the corridor, Ruby trailing behind at his shoulder. He strode forward, his eyes fixed on the woman at the altar.

Silently, they advanced and silently she watched them come, like a virgin queen awaiting her prince at the bridal altar. The instant Sam and Ruby crossed the threshold, the woman lifted her hand in an elegant gesture. The heavy double doors of the chapel slammed shut.

_-oOo-_

June pulled off the road in front of the orange Mustang and stepped out, lifting her face into the night wind. She paid the gory scene behind her only scant attention. The blood spilled over the rear bumper was clotting. The air already carried a faint stink of decomposition. The woman was far past rescue.

June's lip lifted in a silent snarl. Sam was close. The emotions he'd been transmitting, from the moment he had abandoned her, had made her want to wail and scream. The strange stony calm resolve radiating from him from now was even worse.

Closer now, breeze told her he was far from alone. She dropped her dress to the ground and ran towards the massive stone building looming dark and foreboding in the near distance. Her hackles bristled and her fangs flashed in the moonlight as she raced.

June dropped to her belly and covered the last few yards to the convent's gate in a stalking crawl, among the deepest shadows. The gate stood open, the guards beside it already growing cold.

Her paws silent on the litter of leaves covering the slate walk, she crept closer. They were dead. All of them. Guard after guard crumpled and stiffening where they had dropped with terror frozen on their faces.

She pressed herself against the wall and peered around the blind corner. More dead guards in a pair of orderly rows, an open doorway, the glow of candle light spilling through it, Sam and his demon lover stepping across the threshold, striding towards the satanic queen at the altar.

June barreled forward. The demon-queen lifted her hand and the massive doors slammed almost on June's muzzle. She flung herself against the iron-bound wood to no avail, a bestial battle-cry echoing off the stones.

Landing on two feet, she jerked up one of the massive iron lamp-stands by the doorway and began to batter the handles and hinges with no less fervor but far more rational intent. She may as well have bashed the iron against the thick granite walls.

_-oOo-_

Sam stopped in the chancel before the altar steps, Ruby still two steps behind at his right shoulder.

Lilith descended the altar steps. The instant her foot touched the last, Sam flicked a hand. Lilith flew backwards, her body slamming against the altar, her arms spread wide in a travesty of the cobwebbed-draped crucifix that looked down from above.

"I've been waiting for this," Sam said in a soft, calm voice, "for a very long time."

Lilith looked up at him, her eyes full of hatred. "Then give me your best shot."

Sam slowly lifted his hand once more. Lilith gave a gasping cry as her pinioned body spasmed. Orange fire glowed through the skin of her chest, lit up her eyes like blazing embers.

_-oOo-_

It was his two-hundred-thirty-seventh circuit of the room. Approximately. Dean stopped beside the center table and eyed the stack of burgers with suspicion. His stomach growled. He shrugged and reached for one. They were still hot. Doomed man, last meal, what the heck…. He pushed the paper back and started to take a bite.

He was grabbed by the shoulder, spun around. Cas slammed him against the wall, clamped a hand over his mouth, and drew the demon-knife part way from under his coat.

Their faces only inches apart, Cas lifted his chin and stared a question into his eyes. Dean nodded.

Cas released him and drew the blade hard across his own bared forearm, the blood flowing thick and fast. Cas dragged his fingers across the gash and began to feverishly draw a sigil on the wall.

"Castiel!" Zachariah's voice cracked behind them like a whip. "Would you mind explaining just what the hell you're doing?"

Cas spared him only the briefest glance and finished the last symbol. Zachariah took a step towards them. Cas slammed his palm into the middle of the sigil.

There was a burst of white light so brilliant it almost blinded Dean before he could wrap his arms over his face. When it faded, Zachariah had vanished.

"He won't be gone long," Cas said. "We have to find Sam _now_. We have to stop him, Dean, from killing Lilith." He handed back the bloodied knife.

"But Lilith's gonna break the final seal," Dean said, sliding the blade against his shirt and into the empty sheath on his belt.

"Lilith _is_ the final seal. She dies, the end begins."

There was no time to absorb the shock. "I know _exactly_ where Sam is."

"Show me!" Cas slapped a gory palm against Dean's forehead. Both men knew and were known and they were not in Heaven's vestibule any longer.

-oOo-

June was battering at a medieval set of doors with a lamp-stand. Dean knew why she was so frantic. He grabbed the other stand and hefted it with a grunt. "Sam!"

He could hardly swing the damn thing, and it didn't do anything on impact but gouge out a thick splinter. "SAM! SAMMY!"

Cas stepped between them, with an uplifted hand and an expression that clearly said he was displeased with the faithless brute force efforts of the lower primates. He flicked two fingers towards the doors.

They opened so fast they slammed back against the walls, cracking the thick stone and bursting the ancient oak into kindling.

_-oOo-_

Inside the chapel, Sam heard Dean's shouts and looked towards the door, his hand dropping.

"What are you waiting for?" Ruby screeched at him, her hands clawing the air in panic. "Now! Sam, now!"

Behind them, a beautiful, cruel laugh rippled. "You turned yourself into a freak. A monster," Lilith mocked. "And now you're not gonna bite? I'm sorry, but that is honestly adorable."

Dean was through the doorway so fast that bits of falling oak bounced off his skin. He took a flying leap and wrapped himself around Sam.

Sam almost fell, but caught his balance in time. Instant understanding flashed through them.

"KILLING Lilith is the seal!" Dean blurted against Sam's ear. "Repeat after me!"

He began to whisper the words Cas had planted in his mind. Sam spoke them almost in the same instant. The primeval words roared and murmured and probably almost ripped Sam's throat out, but they hung on the suddenly still air of the chapel as if their power was palpable.

"NO!" Lilith shrieked, before her body convulsed, then levitated, suspending her from the back of her head and the backs of her hands.

_-oOo-_

When the chapel doors blew open, June sprang through them at Dean's side. While he tackled Sam, she gathered herself and sprang at Ruby, sliding into fur in mid-leap.

The demon went down hard, her skull smashing hard enough against the slate floor to stun, if not outright kill, a human. But it scarcely took the fight out of Ruby.

They tore at each other with knife and teeth and claws. The weight of the words Sam spoke seemed to muffle Ruby's curses and June's vicious snarls.

Sam swayed, his voice faltered, and chaotic noise burst out in the chapel again. Lilth shrieked and then began to choke and laugh. Ruby's shouted blasphemy was cut off with a bony crunch as June clamped her jaws over the demon's nose and mouth.

Their struggles rolled them across the floor and June's back impacted against Dean's calves. Blue-white cold fire swept up and over the three of them and Sam's voice rose to an inhuman volume.

Lilith's laughter cut off with a gurgle. Roiling black and fiery orange smoke poured out of her mouth and nose, oozing off her body to roil down the altar steps like lava. It pooled in the chancel, tried once to rear itself back up to human height, then collapsed and was sucked into the stone leaving only a very female shriek of frustrated rage behind.

Lilith's stolen body gently settled to the floor, her arms sliding down the marble to rest lightly at her sides. Her eyelids flickered beneath their lids, and whatever she saw made a small, sweet smile curve her lips.

Sam drew a deep, shaky breath and turned. His face hard again, he pulled Ruby away from June and held her up, her back pressed against his chest. Ruby slumped in his hold, wheezing, and looked up into Sam's face.

"You knew the truth about Lilith and you didn't tell me, did you?" he demanded.

"You don't understand. It was the only way to free him," she said, looking up at him, as if they were the only two in the room. "Lucifer isn't an evil monster, Sam. He's the real savior. Our true god."

Dean drew his knife and Sam gave him one curt nod. Ruby's eyes went wide. "Sam! No! Plea-!"

The demon-killer lit her up as Dean plunged it into her belly and shoved it up, into her heart. He gave the blade a hard twist as she writhed, her eyes and mouth seething with hellfire.

Sam dropped her like the garbage she was and stepped over her carcass to grab Dean in an embrace that was just the breathing side of crushing. June completed the circuit again by pressing herself against Sam's side and throwing an arm around Dean's waist.

The only light that burst out this time was an inner one of triumph and relief and Dean didn't resent this group hug one bit.

Cas lifted the woman they had known as Lilith into his arms. She murmured and snuggled her face into his shoulder. "We must leave here," he said. "Quickly."

He and the woman took Angel Airlift out. Dean blinked at the blank spot, and treated himself to a good hard kick to Ruby's dead ass. "I'd rather walk than climb into this skank's pussy-mobile."

Sam grimaced. "Me too. I never want to see that butt-ugly piece of shit again."

June laughed and clapped them both on the shoulders. "Come on, boys. Baby's waiting on the corner."

As they hurried down the chapel walk, Dean glanced over and scowled at June. "Can't you _ever_ keep your clothes on?"


	21. Chapter 21

**Epilogue**

They had just saved the world. Literally. Dean figured at this point he'd be laughing hysterically or at least grinning from ear to ear. Instead, he felt… tired and sore and old. His ribs hadn't twinged at all in the holy Green Room, but now they throbbed in time to his heartbeat. Silence smothered him like a lead fog, but he didn't reach for the radio.

A glance into the rearview showed him June staring out the side window. The light from a passing streetlight caught the glint of a tear sliding down her cheek.

He looked over at Sam. He was staring down at his phone, his thumb stroking over the keypad without pressing any of the buttons.

"What is it?" Dean asked. "Last words from Ruby?"

Sam looked up at him, and damned if Sam wasn't at the point of tears too. "When are you going to set me out?"

"What?" he blinked, and glanced back at the road just in time to brake hard as the light turned red.

"I know you won't want to travel far with a monster. Or are you just trying to decide when to cut my head off?"

The light turned green but Dean didn't take his foot off the brake. "What the HELL are you talking about?"

"That's how you kill a vampire," Sam hissed.

"Again, what the HELL are you talking about?"

"Oh, so now we're going to pretend it never happened. Ok. Sure. Drive on."

Dean bounced his forehead off the steering wheel. One. Two. Three. He reached over and grabbed his brother's arm. It was like reaching into a whirlpool of sucking misery.

Sam slapped his arm away, his jaw set and nostrils flaring.

"Sam, I swear, I _swear_ I don't have a friggin' clue what you're talking about. What did I do?"

Sam dialed a sequence, held up his phone. _'First delivered message, picked up 11:47 PM yesterday'_ the voicemail announced, and then Dean heard a voice that sounded like his pour out of the speaker, full of rage and revulsion.

_"Listen to me, you bloodsucking freak. Dad always said I'd either have to save you or kill you. Well, I'm giving you fair warning. I'm done trying to save you. You're a monster, Sam - a vampire. You're not you anymore. And there's no going back."_

Sam shut off his voicemail and flung the phone onto the seat between them. Dean stared down at it like it might coil up and strike. Again.

His mouth moved but no sound came out. Dean swallowed and tried once more. He reached out again and laid his hand on Sam's arm. "Sam—I swear to God and on Mom's grave, that sounds like my voice but that is not me. Yeah, I called you but it had to be at least a couple of hours earlier and that was _not_ what I said."

Sam's face was still hurt, but at least the anger was fading.

"I called to apologize to you, Sammy. I'm not going to say I suddenly approve of what you've done lately, but you're not the only one who crapped and fell back in it here. I should never have said what I said, Sam. I was wrong about that, about you, and I'm sorry."

Sam nodded, and swiped the back of his hand across his eyes. "Yeah, I'm sorry too. I…"

Sam's phone spoke up on its own. _'First unheard message, sent yesterday at 7:07 PM' _

Dean's voice came out of the speaker again, and this time, he knew it was his own. Choked and hesitant, but bed-rock sincere. _"__Hey, it's me."_ Recorded Dean cleared his throat. _"Look, I'll just get right to it. I'm still pissed, and I owe you a serious beat-down. But… I shouldn't have said what I said. You know… I'm not Dad."_ A sigh hissed through the speaker. _"We're brothers. You know, we're family. And, um… no matter how bad it gets, that doesn't change."_ A wet click from the speaker. _"Sammy, I'm sorr—"_

Sam pressed a key after the message cut itself off mid-word. _'Message saved in permanent archive,'_ the phone confirmed.

June laid a hand on both their shoulders and the light turned green again. Dean pulled away, the motor crooning a familiar, soothing lullaby.

**Finis**

"And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him;

and a threefold cord is not quickly broken."

_Ecclesiastes 4: 12, KJV_


End file.
